# methane.land - Methane Land | Gas rights screen for power and compute

> Who can sell the gas, who is owed royalty, which flaring rules apply and who signs for a power or compute pad. A gas rights screen by independent landmen.

## Overview & Scope
- **Canonical Domain**: https://methane.land/
- **Contact Email**: hello@methane.land
- **Phone**: (307) 263-8515
- **Privacy Policy**: https://methane.land/privacy.html
- **Terms of Use**: https://methane.land/terms.html
- **Access Policy**: Public browser calculators, checklists, and reference guides on this domain are free and ungated. Tract-specific courthouse deed, probate, unit, or division-order record verification is requested through the site inquiry form.

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## Pages, Calculators & Guides
- [Methane Land | Gas rights screen for power and compute](https://methane.land/): Who can sell the gas, who is owed royalty, which flaring rules apply and who signs for a power or compute pad. A gas rights screen by independent landmen.
- [Free-use gas clauses & wellsite generator fuel royalty](https://methane.land/lease-use-gas-and-off-lease-fuel-royalty-texas): How oil and gas lease free-use and royalty clauses distinguish royalty-free lease operations from gas sold or burned to power wellsite compute loads.
- [Shut-in royalty & stranded gas well leases (TX) | methane.land](https://methane.land/shut-in-royalty-and-stranded-gas-well-leases-texas): How shut-in royalty clauses work when a Texas gas well awaits a pipeline, and what changes under the lease when gas is sold to a wellsite generator.
- [Surface owner vs. mineral owner wellsite pad rights for gas](https://methane.land/surface-owner-vs-mineral-owner-wellsite-pad-rights): How the dominant mineral estate, surface use agreements, and surface leases apply when a generator or compute skid is set next to an oil or gas well.
- [Texas casinghead gas & gas well gas: waste & use statutes](https://methane.land/texas-casinghead-gas-use-and-waste): What Texas Natural Resources Code chapters 85 and 86 say about gas waste, gas that burns or escapes, and what casinghead gas and gas well gas may be used for.
- [Texas Rule 32: flaring, venting & Form R-32 exceptions](https://methane.land/texas-rule-32-flaring-exceptions): What the Railroad Commission of Texas Statewide Rule 32 (16 TAC 3.32) allows without an application, what needs an exception, and what Form R-32 asks.

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## Full Page Summaries & Sections

### Methane Land | Gas rights screen for power and compute
- **URL**: https://methane.land/
- **Headline**: Who can sell this gas, who is owed on it, and who signs for the pad.
- **Summary**: Who can sell the gas, who is owed royalty, which flaring rules apply and who signs for a power or compute pad. A gas rights screen by independent landmen.
- **Sections**: Three facts start a screen; What the gas is; Making it engine fuel; The meter is where royalty gets figured; The rules pushing gas off the flare; How much power the gas makes; Where the power goes, and who signs for the site; Send the gas facts
  - methane.land is our gas-rights screen, for gas that is flared, shut in, surplus or sold on terms you want to beat. Send the rate, the county and who owns the surface, and a landman answers four questions from the lease and the county records: who can sell the gas, who is owed royalty on it, which flaring rules bear on it, and whose signatures a power or compute pad needs. The power math below runs on your own numbers.
  - For operators and working interest owners, surface owners, mineral and royalty owners, and the power and compute companies looking for gas.
  - Looking for a buyer, a gas supply or a site, not a rights screen? Introductions are made at methane.exchange, the origination desk of the same landmen.

### Free-use gas clauses & wellsite generator fuel royalty
- **URL**: https://methane.land/lease-use-gas-and-off-lease-fuel-royalty-texas
- **Headline**: Free-use gas clauses and wellsite generator fuel royalty in Texas
- **Summary**: How oil and gas lease free-use and royalty clauses distinguish royalty-free lease operations from gas sold or burned to power wellsite compute loads.
- **Sections**: On this page; 1What standard Texas free-use clauses actually say; 2Proceeds vs. market value at the well on genset fuel; 3Metering split loads: lease ESPs plus compute containers; 4Natural gas liquids (NGLs) knocked out ahead of the engine; Send the gas and lease facts; Contact; Entity
  - Standard oil and gas leases let the operator use gas produced from the lease free of royalty for operations on the leased premises. When gas from the separator is routed into a generator engine instead of a pipeline, whether royalty is owed, and how that royalty is valued, depends on whether the electricity runs the lease's own wells or a commercial compute or power load.
  - This page is general landman reference material. Every royalty calculation turns on the specific oil and gas lease and any division orders in effect. It is not legal advice.
  - Most Texas oil and gas leases contain two provisions that govern gas burned at the wellsite: the gas royalty clause (which typically sets royalty on "market value at the well" for gas used off the premises or in the manufacture of products, and on "proceeds" or "amount realized" for gas sold at the well) and the free-use clause (which grants the lessee free use of oil, gas, and water from the land "for all operations hereunder"). Under Texas Supreme Court precedent (ConocoPhillips Co. v. Koopmann, 547 S.W.3d 858; BlueStone Natural Resources II, LLC v. Randle, 620 S.W.3d 380), the wording of the free-use clause controls how far royalty-free fuel extends. Gas burned in a wellsite generator to power the lease's own submersible pumps (ESPs), rod pumps, or lease compressors directly serves lease operations. Gas sold across a meter, or burned by the operator or an affiliate to run data-center servers or export power off the lease, is not an operation to produce oil and gas from the lease, and royalty owners will look to the gas royalty clause for payment on the metered volume and heating value.

### Shut-in royalty & stranded gas well leases (TX) | methane.land
- **URL**: https://methane.land/shut-in-royalty-and-stranded-gas-well-leases-texas
- **Headline**: Shut-in royalty and stranded gas well leases in Texas: what changes when a wellsite generator starts taking gas
- **Summary**: How shut-in royalty clauses work when a Texas gas well awaits a pipeline, and what changes under the lease when gas is sold to a wellsite generator.
- **Sections**: On this page; 1How Texas shut-in clauses work on stranded gas wells; 2Cumulative shut-in time limits that push wells to on-site power; 3Production in paying quantities when selling to a genset; 4What happens if the generator skid stops taking gas; Have a shut-in well or stranded gas lease?; Contact; Entity
  - A gas well completed miles from a gathering line is often held past its primary term by shut-in royalty payments while the operator waits on pipeline connections. Putting a wellsite generator or compute skid on that well turns a shut-in well into an active gas sale, shifting how the lease is maintained from shut-in tenders to actual production in paying quantities.
  - This page is general landman reference material. Every Texas oil and gas lease turns on its own exact wording. It is not legal advice.
  - In Texas, a secondary-term oil and gas lease requires actual production in paying quantities to stay alive unless a savings clause applies (Gulf Oil Corp. v. Reid, 337 S.W.2d 267). When a gas well is capable of producing in paying quantities but is shut in for lack of a pipeline market, a properly drafted shut-in royalty clause allows the operator to tender a fixed shut-in payment on time and to the right owners as a substitute for actual production. Many modern landowner leases cap how long shut-in payments can hold a lease (commonly two or three cumulative or consecutive years). Selling gas across a custody meter to a wellsite power or compute host replaces shut-in status with actual production, which means two things: the revenue from the metered gas sale must cover ongoing operating and marketing costs to satisfy the paying-quantities test (Clifton v. Koontz, 325 S.W.2d 684), and if the generator skid shuts down for extended maintenance or leaves the pad after the primary term, the lease's 60-day or 90-day cessation-of-production clock starts running immediately.

### Surface owner vs. mineral owner wellsite pad rights for gas
- **URL**: https://methane.land/surface-owner-vs-mineral-owner-wellsite-pad-rights
- **Headline**: Surface owner vs. mineral owner wellsite pad rights for gas-to-power and compute skids
- **Summary**: How the dominant mineral estate, surface use agreements, and surface leases apply when a generator or compute skid is set next to an oil or gas well.
- **Sections**: On this page; 1How the three loads separate surface paper; 2Clauses to read in the oil and gas lease and SUA; 3What a third-party wellsite pad lease covers; 4Records we pull before anyone stakes a pad; Send the gas and site facts; Contact; Entity
  - When the surface estate and the mineral estate are severed, the oil and gas lessee holds an implied right to use as much of the surface as is reasonably necessary to produce the minerals. Whether that right covers a generator skid or a third-party compute container depends on who owns the equipment, what load the power serves, and what the recorded lease and surface use agreement say.
  - This page is general landman reference material. It describes common lease and surface-use provisions and how landmen pull the county records to see who holds surface and mineral title. It is not legal advice.
  - In Texas, the mineral estate is dominant: an oil and gas lessee may use as much of the surface as is reasonably necessary to explore for, drill, produce, and market the leased oil and gas, subject to the accommodation doctrine (Getty Oil Co. v. Jones, 470 S.W.2d 618; Merriman v. XTO Energy, Inc., 407 S.W.3d 244) and any express limits in the oil and gas lease or a Surface Use Agreement (SUA). Power generation equipment owned or leased by the operator to run the lease's own artificial lift (ESPs, rod pumps) or gas compression sits inside lease operations. By contrast, when a third-party hosting or compute company sets generator skids and data containers on the pad to run an off-lease commercial computing load, the equipment is not operating the well, and the oil and gas lease's implied surface easement rarely gives a third party an independent right to occupy the ranch. In practice, third-party gas-to-compute projects almost always require a direct surface lease or pad agreement signed by the surface owner of record, alongside a gas purchase agreement with the operator or working interest owners.

### Texas casinghead gas & gas well gas: waste & use statutes
- **URL**: https://methane.land/texas-casinghead-gas-use-and-waste
- **Headline**: Texas casinghead gas and gas well gas: what the waste and gas-use statutes say
- **Summary**: What Texas Natural Resources Code chapters 85 and 86 say about gas waste, gas that burns or escapes, and what casinghead gas and gas well gas may be used for.
- **Sections**: On this page; 1Which gas is which; 2What counts as waste; 3What gas may be used for; 4What the two chapters do not say; 5How Rule 32 sits beside them; 6The facts the statutory tests turn on; 7Sources
  - Two chapters of the Texas Natural Resources Code, 85 and 86, make waste unlawful and say what waste includes. Chapter 86 also lists what gas may be used for, and the list depends on which kind of gas it is. This page sets out those sections, with the definitions that decide which kind you have.
  - This is general information. It covers the Texas statutes named on this page, a few phrases from Railroad Commission Rule 32, and no court decisions. It reports what the statutes say and does not tell an operator, owner or power host whether a particular use of gas is lawful.
  - Two chapters of the Texas Natural Resources Code hold the waste and gas-use sections this page covers: Chapter 85 (conservation of oil and gas) and Chapter 86 (regulation of natural gas). Both make waste unlawful (§§ 85.045 and 86.011). Both list, among the things waste includes, permitting a gas well to burn wastefully and letting gas escape into the open air from a well producing both oil and gas “in excess of the amount” that is necessary in the efficient drilling or operation of the well (§§ 85.046(a) and 86.012(a)). Chapter 86 then lists what gas may be used for, and the list depends on the kind of gas. Casinghead gas “may be used for any beneficial purpose” (§ 86.183). Sweet gas from a gas well may not be used “for any purpose except” four listed ones, and the first is “light or fuel” (§ 86.181); § 86.182 adds chemical manufacturing uses for sour gas, and § 86.184 allows gas lift, up to 10,000 cubic feet per barrel of oil produced, with sweet, sour or casinghead gas. The definitions in § 86.002 decide which is which, and 100,000 cubic feet of gas to each barrel of oil is where the oil well and gas well definitions meet, though a well can also be a gas well on other grounds. The two chapters do not name engines, generators or computing, and neither sets a royalty rule for flared or lease-use gas. The text does not settle whether a particular use fits.

### Texas Rule 32: flaring, venting & Form R-32 exceptions
- **URL**: https://methane.land/texas-rule-32-flaring-exceptions
- **Headline**: Texas Rule 32: what may be flared or vented, and when an operator needs an exception
- **Summary**: What the Railroad Commission of Texas Statewide Rule 32 (16 TAC 3.32) allows without an application, what needs an exception, and what Form R-32 asks.
- **Sections**: On this page; 1What the rule covers; 2Three layers of release; 3Flare or vent; 4How an exception works; 5What an operator files and what shows in the record; 6Where the Commission’s papers differ; 7What changed in 2020 and 2021
  - Statewide Rule 32 is the Railroad Commission of Texas rule on releasing gas to a flare or to the air. This page reads the rule text by subsection, then sets out what the Commission’s Form R-32 and monthly production report add to it.
  - This is general information. It covers Texas oil and gas wells under the Railroad Commission only, and it reads the rule, not any operator’s exception. It does not say whether a given release is allowed or whether an exception will be granted.
  - Statewide Rule 32, 16 Texas Administrative Code § 3.32, opens its general provisions with one sentence: all gas from any oil well, gas well, gas gathering system, gas plant or other gas handling equipment “shall be utilized for purposes and uses authorized by law, except as provided in this section” (§ 3.32(c)). What the rule provides comes in three layers. Some releases are exempt from the rule (subsection (d)). Some are authorized without an application, but only within stated limits of time, volume or gas recovery, and they are measured or estimated, reported and charged against lease allowable production (subsection (f)(1)). Anything past those limits needs an exception under subsection (h). An administrative exception “shall not exceed a period of 180 days,” and that limit does not apply to volumes of 50 mcf of hydrocarbon gas a day or less for each gas well, commission-designated oil lease or commingled vent or flare point (§ 3.32(h)(2) and (3)). An exception is issued to the operator and does not transfer when the operator changes. The 2020 and 2021 changes the Commission announced were to Form R-32 and to the instructions for the monthly production report, not to the rule text.