Last week I sent out an email invitation to our membership regarding a meeting to be held TOMORROW at 10am at the New Mexico State Land Office. This meeting will be an opportunity for industry to tell our regulators where we need some relief due to low commodity pricing.

In addition, we will have the opportunity to discuss the current stripper well program 19-10-5.1 NMSA (attached) which is already available to producers but is not widely used. This program allows oil well stripper producers to ask for a royalty rate reduction from 12.5% to 5% for a period of three years upon a showing that the operator has taken reasonable steps to minimize his costs of operating the oil well; the oil well will likely be plugged and abandoned in the near future, with a resulting loss of reserves, if operating costs are not reduced further; the oil well will produce for a longer period, and the amount of oil produced will ultimately be larger, if the royalty rate is lowered; and a lower royalty rate will actually maximize revenue to the trust beneficiaries.

If it is important for you or your company to 1. understand the current regulations on the books regarding royalty rate reductions or, 2. to understand the current regulations for temporary shut-in status, or, 3. to ask our regulators for some relief in another area. Please attend this meeting!

If you can not attend, PLEASE SEND ME YOUR COMMENTS so we have the opportunity to present our concerns! Due to technical limitations we will not have conference call ability.