Mineral rights research and open data

We compile how every US state treats severed mineral interests, from the primary statute up. It is free to read, openly licensed, and built to be cited. Start with the map, then go as deep as a single state.

Quick answer: This is the research section of American Mineral Registry. It compiles, state by state, how the United States treats severed mineral interests: whether unused minerals can lapse, the governing statutes, oil and gas production figures, and state tax treatment, with sources cited and the data free to reuse. Use it to understand the rules before you value or sell an interest.

Free tool

Dormant mineral deadline calculator

Enter the date a severed interest was last used and the state it sits in. See when it can lapse, how long that is from today, and exactly what resets the clock. Covers every state.

Free tool

Oil and gas royalty calculator

Enter your net mineral acres, the drilling unit size, your lease royalty rate, and recent production and price. See your net royalty decimal and the gross monthly and annual royalty, with the method shown.

Interactive

Mineral rights laws by state

A map and sortable table of all 50 states and D.C.: which let a severed interest lapse through nonuse, the dormancy period, and the governing statute.

Open data

Oil and gas production by state

Crude oil and natural gas produced in every US state in 2025, from the EIA, with what the numbers mean for a mineral or royalty owner. Free CC BY dataset.

Ranking

Dormancy Risk Index

Every state scored 0 to 100 and ranked for how easily an absent owner can lose a severed interest. Louisiana sits at the top.

51 pages

A page for every state

One page per jurisdiction with the rule, the lapse clock, what resets it, the surface and pooling position, and the statute, written for owners.

For press and researchers

Press kit and data

Downloadable dataset in CSV and JSON, citation files, the methodology, the headline figures, and the chart and map as images.

Reference

Mineral and royalty glossary

Plain English definitions of the lease, division order and ownership terms a mineral or royalty owner meets, marked up with DefinedTerm schema for citation.

Diagram

Anatomy of a mineral estate

How a tract splits into surface and minerals, and the five rights in the mineral owner's bundle, in one labelled diagram.

Decision flow

Do you own the minerals?

A step by step flow through severance, lease and royalty history, inheritance and dormant minerals to where your situation lands.

All of it is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, so you may reuse the data with credit. Corrections and review requests go to offers@americanmineralregistry.com. Last reviewed June 2026.

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