We buy non-operated working interests, including the ones that bill you more than they pay you. There is a way out, and it does not involve ignoring the mail.
Somewhere in a drawer is an envelope from an operator you have never met, billing you for your share of work on a well you have never seen. It arrives every month. Sometimes a revenue check arrives too, and sometimes it does not cover the bill. Welcome to non-operated working interest ownership, the inheritance nobody asks for.
A JIB is the monthly invoice an operator sends every working interest owner for their share of the well's costs: operating expenses, repairs, workovers, and sometimes big-ticket items like plugging. Unlike a royalty, a working interest pays costs. When the well produces well, revenue exceeds the JIBs and you profit. When it produces poorly, the JIBs keep coming anyway.
Because almost nobody buys non-operated working interests, especially small ones. Royalty buyers do not want cost-bearing interests. Operators may offer to take it off your hands for nothing, or less than nothing. Meanwhile ignoring the JIBs is genuinely dangerous: unpaid balances can go to collections, and the interest can carry its liabilities to your estate. Many heirs discover they own one of these only when the first past-due notice arrives.
Berlin buys non-op WIs across the states where we work: producing and marginal, single wells and packages, clean title and tangled. We net the revenue against the burdens honestly, we account for plugging exposure like the underwriters we are, and we make a real offer where the numbers support one.
And when an interest is truly a liability rather than an asset, we say that plainly and can still structure an exit, because for the right price the answer to "who would take this?" is us. What we will not do is leave you guessing. You will know what you own, what it earns, what it owes, and what we will pay, in writing.
The operator's name and a recent JIB or revenue statement is a strong start; a division order or the well name works too. From there we pull the production, reconstruct the economics, and come back with either an offer or an honest explanation of why the interest nets negative and what your options are. That evaluation is free either way.
If your working interest sits inside a family partnership or LLC, we can also buy the entity whole, which is often the cleanest exit of all. And if what you hold is a 1970s or 1980s drilling program, our unusual interests page covers exactly that paperwork.
Send what you have through the free valuation form, or call or text 918-984-1645 and just read us the envelope. The JIBs will not stop on their own. The despair can stop today.
Free, no obligation, and no pressure. Send whatever you have, even just the county name, and we reply within one business day.
Get a Free Valuation or call or text 918-984-1645