It’s not the leases, stupid! It’s the crap that needs approval up to the point where you actually stick a drill bit into the ground.
“It’s not the leases, stupid! It’s the crap that needs approval up to the point where you actually stick a drill bit into the ground.” No oil, no royalty. A dry hole is worthless to uncle sam also as they are probably very inefficient vetting leases.
A lease cost less the environmental impact statement and required forms that have to be filed with EPA dweebs. The approval of road building to the drill pad cost more than the impact statement. A very real cost savings of horizontal drilling is employees spend their time next to well head than busy driving between drill sites to find that unicorn spare part or in quest of appearance of being busy.