Oregon mineral rights

ORS s. 517.170, Policy

ORS chapter 517 carries a heading block titled EXTINGUISHING DORMANT MINERAL INTEREST, and the first section under it is a policy section. It declares that it is in the interest of the State of Oregon to provide a mechanism for the removal of dormant encumbrances on property which prevent a landowner from using or developing that property in a manner which contributes to the economy and increases the state's tax base. That is the whole section. It was enacted by 1983 c.421 section 1, the same chapter that enacted the extinguishment procedure in the next section.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 517.170 on 2026-08-02. Dormant mineral acts are ordinarily silent about why they exist, and where they are not silent they usually say something about development or about owners nobody can find. Two other statutes on this record state their own purpose and neither says this. Pennsylvania's Dormant Oil and Gas Act gives its purpose as facilitating development by reducing the problems caused by fragmented and unknown or unlocatable ownership, and protecting the interests of unknown or unlocatable owners. Wisconsin's metalliferous minerals tax says it is to compensate the state and municipalities for the loss of valuable, irreplaceable minerals. Oregon's names the tax base, which is a statement about the fisc rather than about anybody's title, and it is worth knowing that the legislature said so when reading what the operative section does and does not protect. WHAT IS NOT READ: the 1983 legislative history, and any Oregon decision citing this section.

ORS s. 517.180, Procedure for extinguishing dormant mineral interest

An owner of land in which another person holds a mineral interest may extinguish the holder's interest by publishing notice and submitting an affidavit of publication for recording, unless one of two things is true: within the last thirty years the holder has submitted a statement of claim for recording, or the holder acquired the mineral interest within the previous thirty years. That is the entire list of exceptions. Producing the minerals is not on it. Granting a lease is not on it. Paying the tax on the interest is not on it. Mineral interest is defined to include any interest created by an instrument transferring, by grant, assignment, reservation or otherwise, an interest of any kind in coal, oil, gas or other minerals and geothermal resources, excluding interests vested in the United States, the State of Oregon or a political subdivision, and excluding sand and gravel; so it reaches leases and royalties as well as the fee mineral estate. Owner of land is defined as a vested fee simple owner or a contract purchaser, so a tenant cannot start it. And the section may not be waived at any time.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 517.180 on 2026-08-02, the section in full. Three things separate it from every other extinguishment statute on this record. THE PERIOD: thirty years. Every other one read here runs twenty, except Nebraska's twenty-three and Louisiana's ten-year prescription of nonuse; the thirty-year figures in Florida, Oklahoma and North Carolina's Avery County are marketable-title roots, which is a different device. THE SAVING EVENTS: two, and neither is use. Ohio, North Dakota, Washington, Michigan, Indiana and Kansas all list qualifying uses, and paying the tax counts in Kansas and Washington. On the face of this text an Oregon owner who has been producing oil for forty years, and who acquired the interest more than thirty years ago, has nothing recorded that stops the procedure. THE WAIVER BAR: subsection (10) says the provisions may not be waived AT ANY TIME. Washington's and North Dakota's non-waiver clauses both stop at the expiry of the twenty-year period; Oregon's has no expiry in it. WHAT IS NOT READ, and it matters here more than anywhere else on this page: no Oregon decision. A court asked whether forty years of production defeats a statute headed Extinguishing Dormant Mineral Interest might not reach the answer the text alone suggests, and nothing was fetched either way. Nor was anything read establishing that the section has ever been used.

ORS s. 517.180, Procedure for extinguishing dormant mineral interest

To extinguish the interest and acquire ownership of it, the landowner must publish notice of the lapse at least once each week for three consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county where the lands are. If the holder's address is known or can be determined by due diligence, the notice must also be mailed to the holder before the first publication. The notice must give the holder's name as shown of record, a reference to the instrument creating the original interest including where it is recorded, a description of the lands, the name and address of the person giving notice, the date of first publication, and a statement that the holder must submit a statement of claim to the county clerk within sixty days after the last publication or the interest may be extinguished. Within fifteen days after the last publication the landowner files a copy of the notice and an affidavit of publication with the county clerk. That affidavit must state either that a copy was mailed and the address it went to, or, if none was mailed, give a detailed description including dates of the efforts made to find the address with due diligence. The interest is then extinguished and becomes the property of the landowner unless the holder submits a statement of claim within the sixty days.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 517.180(3) to (9) on 2026-08-02. North Dakota is the pair for this, not the contrast: a North Dakota surface owner also publishes once a week for three weeks in the official county newspaper and also mails a copy where the address is of record or can be determined on reasonable inquiry. The probe that put Oregon on this record said North Dakota used publication as a fallback, which the North Dakota page here already contradicted; the fallback state is Washington, where service leads and publication is available only where the owner is unknown to the county treasurer and cannot be found after due diligence. What Oregon adds is the ORDER of the mailing. It goes out BEFORE the first publication, where North Dakota's goes within ten days AFTER the last one, which means an Oregon owner who is findable hears about it at the start of the three weeks rather than at the end. The statement of claim itself, under subsection (3), is short: it must give the holder's name and address as shown in the instrument that created the original interest, and the name and address of the current holder. WHAT IS NOT READ: what due diligence means here, and whether any Oregon court has measured it.

ORS s. 517.300, Effect of certificate

This is separate from the dormant mineral act and it reaches a narrower thing: quartz or placer mines owned by more than one person, which is the mining claim world rather than severed oil and gas. Any person owning a legal or equitable interest may perform the annual assessment work. If a co-owner fails to contribute their proportion, the performing co-owner may give notice at the end of the assessment year stating the work done, the dates, and the amount due, requiring payment within ninety days. Notice is served personally by the sheriff, or, if the delinquent co-owner cannot be found within the state, by publication once a week for ninety days in the weekly newspaper published nearest the mine. If the ninety days pass unpaid, title to the delinquent co-owner's interest is immediately vested in the co-owners who did the work. They file affidavits of nonpayment and the county clerk issues a certificate which is equivalent to a deed from the delinquent co-owner, recorded and indexed in the Mineral and Mining Record with the same force and effect as a deed and giving like constructive notice. No court is involved at any point. The delinquent owner's one defence is to file an affidavit of payment with the clerk before the certificate issues, which stops the clerk and leaves the parties to a suit to quiet title.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 517.230 to 517.330 on 2026-08-02, the whole run. A county clerk issuing an instrument that operates as a deed, on one party's affidavit and with no judicial step, is not on this record anywhere else. Read it beside the dormant mineral act on the same page and Oregon carries two statutory routes by which a mineral interest moves without its owner agreeing, in two separate acts a century apart. Illinois is the other state here with two, and both of Illinois's sit inside one statute, the Severed Mineral Interest Act, which supplies a court trust that conveys to the surface owner after seven years and a statutory adverse possession proceeding at section 11. The distinction between two mechanisms in one act and two acts is not worth ranking, and no ranking is made here. SCOPE, and it is the thing to be careful about: assessment work is a mining claim concept and ORS 517.230 frames the sections as applying whenever quartz or placer mines are owned by one or more persons or owned in common. Nothing was read extending this to a severed oil and gas interest and this page does not extend it. The ninety-day publication is worth noticing on its own terms. Every other publication requirement read for this record runs three weeks: Oregon's own dormant mineral act, North Dakota's, Washington's fallback, Illinois's, Hawaii's mining lease notice. This one runs once a week for ninety days after the first publication, and the ninety-day payment window runs from the last of them. WHAT IS NOT READ: whether these sections are used, and what a modern Oregon court would do with a certificate issued under them.

ORS s. 273.787, Release and transfer of mineral or geothermal resource rights

Low-potential resource real property means real property located inside an urban growth boundary, or within an area zoned for residential use on a lot or parcel that is three acres or smaller. For such property, the Department of State Lands may not reserve mineral and geothermal resource rights in land the state sells or exchanges, unless it determines that a significant mineral or geothermal resource exists there. And where rights were reserved by the state before June 4, 2013, the owner, meaning the record holder of fee title or the contract purchaser, may apply at any time for their release and transfer. On that application the department shall release and transfer the reserved rights to the owner within sixty days of receiving the completed application, unless it determines a significant resource exists. The department may not require the owner to obtain an appraisal, and may not require the owner to pay for one conducted at the department's own request. The fee to process the application may not exceed one hundred and fifty dollars.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 273.787 on 2026-08-02. [2003 c.676 s.3; 2013 c.256 s.2], and the 2013 act is what turned a power into a duty and put the clock on it. Two other states on this record let a state mineral reservation be released and neither works like this. Florida's Fla. Stat. 270.11 lets the reserving body sell or release the reserved interest on the owner's own application with a statement of reasons justifying it, which is discretionary. Hawaii's HRS 182-2(a) lets the board release, cancel or waive the reservation whenever it deems a land use other than mining of greater benefit to the State, which is also discretionary. Oregon's says SHALL, fixes sixty days, forbids an appraisal requirement, and caps the fee. It is also the only one on this record that draws its eligibility line by zoning and lot size rather than by the merits of the particular parcel. Note what the release is NOT: it is confined to low-potential resource real property, so it does nothing for rural acreage, and the department keeps an escape in the significant-resource finding, which nothing read defines. WHAT IS NOT READ: the department's rules under subsection (7), the application form, how many releases have been made, and what significant means.

ORS s. 273.780, Retention of mineral and geothermal resource rights by state

Mineral and geothermal resource rights in real property owned by any state agency, and mineral and geothermal resource rights retained as an interest in lands previously sold, granted or otherwise conveyed by the state or any agency of it, are property of the State of Oregon. Proceeds from them accrue to the Common School Fund, and the State Land Board is the state agency acting in any transaction respecting them. Those rights are subject to exploration permit or lease by the Department of State Lands. And they are retained by the state in the absence of a finding by the State Land Board, on adequate facts presented to it, that their sale or exchange is for the purpose of obtaining the greatest benefit for the people of this state consistent with the conservation of lands under its jurisdiction. Mineral for these sections is defined widely, running from oil, gas, sulfur and coal through gold, silver, copper, lead, cinnabar, iron and manganese to any other solid, liquid or gaseous material excavated or otherwise developed for commercial, industrial or construction use from natural deposits, and expressly including mineral waters of all kinds. Separately, the Department of State Lands must establish and maintain a registry of the mineral and geothermal resource rights placed under the State Land Board's jurisdiction.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 273.775, 273.780, 273.785 and 273.790 on 2026-08-02. The phrase to notice is RETAINED AS AN INTEREST IN LANDS PREVIOUSLY SOLD, GRANTED OR OTHERWISE CONVEYED, which is the sentence that reaches private land: if the state kept the minerals when it parted with the surface, whenever that was, the minerals are still the state's and the Common School Fund gets the proceeds. Unlike Alaska, Washington and Hawaii, nothing read here writes a reservation into every conveyance of state land automatically, so whether a particular Oregon parcel is subject to one is a question about the deed rather than about the statute; ORS 273.780(3) makes retention the default going forward, but that is a policy about future transactions, not a term implied into past ones. The exclusions in 273.785 are worth knowing because they are ordinary things: soil, clay, stone, sand and gravel that state agencies acquire or use for constructing or repairing roads or other state facilities are outside these sections, as are mineral or geothermal rights the State Fish and Wildlife Commission acquires under certain agreements. WHAT IS NOT READ: the registry itself under 273.790, whether it is published or searchable, and how a private owner queries it.

ORS s. 522.035, Ownership rights

Ownership rights to geothermal resources are in the owner of the surface property underlain by the resources, unless those rights have been otherwise reserved or conveyed, and nothing in the section divests the people or the state of any rights, title or interest they may have. Whether the chapter reaches a well at all is decided by temperature rather than by substance. The provisions on regulating production from a geothermal reservoir apply only to wells with a bottom hole temperature of at least two hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit, and the provisions on location and drilling do not apply to wells, other than prospect wells, where the fluids produced are of less than that temperature or where the fluids have been appropriated under the ground water statutes. If a well that was initially at least two hundred and fifty degrees falls below it, the State Geologist and the Water Resources Director, after consulting the well owner, determine which agency has regulatory responsibility for that specific well, and the determination is documented in writing and supersedes the general rule.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 522.035 and 522.025 on 2026-08-02. Hawaii is the only other state on this record whose statutes address who owns geothermal, and it goes the other way: HRS 182-1 makes all geothermal resources a mineral by definition and 182-2 reserves the minerals under state lands and reserved lands to the State. Oregon starts from the surface owner and lets the split be made by instrument. Note that ORS 273.775 pairs mineral and geothermal resource rights throughout for state lands, so on land the state kept, the two travel together. The temperature line is the thing to take away, because it decides which agency, which permit and which body of law: at or above two hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit at the bottom of the hole it is geothermal and DOGAMI has it, and below that it is ground water and the Water Resources Department has it. WHAT IS NOT READ: any Oregon decision on whether a general mineral reservation carries geothermal with it, which is a real and contested question elsewhere and which this record cannot answer for Oregon.

ORS s. 517.128, Restricting access to open mining area or mining claim prohibited

Nothing read in Oregon's mineral resources title gives a surface owner a claim for damages against a mineral owner, a right to be consulted, a right to consent, or an accommodation standard. The surface owner appears in these chapters twice and both times as information on a permit application: an exploration permit application must give the name and address of the surface owner and mineral owner, and an operating permit application must give the name and address of the landowner, the owner of the surface estate, the operator and any parent corporations. What the statutes do provide runs the other way. A person may not attempt to restrict access to any open mining area or valid mining claim, or to harass or interfere in any way with a person engaged in lawful mining activities. A person commits the crime of mineral trespass, a Class C misdemeanour, by intentionally and without the permission of the claim holder entering a posted mining claim and disturbing or removing minerals, tampering with a flume, rocker box, bedrock sluice, sluice box, dredge, quartz mill or other mining equipment at a posted claim, or defacing a location stake, side post, corner post, landmark, monument or posted written notice within one. And a person commits the crime of interfering with a mining operation, also a Class C misdemeanour, by intentionally interfering with or stopping a lawful small scale mining operation.

Checked August 2, 2026. The negative was established on 2026-08-02 by enumeration with controls and not by any search. The instrument is the complete text of all four chapters of Title 43, Mineral Resources, fetched in four requests: ORS 516 at 53,867 characters, ORS 517 at 403,942, ORS 520 at 95,218 and ORS 522 at 160,798. Counted case-insensitively across all four, SURFACE DAMAGE returns 0, ACCOMMODAT 0, CONSENT OF THE SURFACE 0, CONSENT OF THE OWNER 0, REASONABLE USE 0 and WRITTEN CONSENT 0. SURFACE OWNER returns 2 and SURFACE ESTATE 1, all three in permit applications and inspected individually. DAMAGES returns 0 in 516, 517 and 520, and 2 in 522, both of them at ss. 522.080 and 522.155 making a well operator liable to any person or public agency that sustains damages from failure to comply with a permit condition protecting GROUND WATER; that is a water provision capable of reaching a surface owner and this record does not call it a surface damage act. The controls are what make the zeros mean something: PERMIT returns 397 in 517 alone and 503 across the four, RECLAMATION 195, NOTICE 180, LANDOWNER 25, LEASE 27 and ROYALTY 12. The positives were read at ORS 517.128, 517.130 and 517.133, all enacted by 1999 c.354, with an exemption at 517.135 for conduct required or authorised by law or judicial decree or performed by a public servant in the reasonable exercise of official powers. Those four sections carry an editorial note that they were enacted into law but were not added to or made a part of ORS chapter 517 or any series therein by legislative action, which affects where they sit in the code and not whether they are in force. THE LIMIT: this is a four-chapter enumeration over the title about minerals. It cannot exclude a surface protection sitting in the property or land use titles, and neither ORS 105 nor Oregon's land use statutes were enumerated for one.

ORS s. 517.750, Definitions for ORS 517.702 to 517.989

The definitions for Oregon's mined land reclamation statutes define landowner to mean the person possessing fee title to the natural mineral deposit being surface mined or explored, and the owner of an equitable interest in land subject to a deed of trust. It does not mean the owner of the surface. That definition governs every use of the word across ORS 517.702 to 517.989, which is the whole reclamation and operating permit regime. It matters because those sections put real duties on the landowner: a landowner or operator may not allow or engage in surface mining on land not surface mined on July 1, 1972 without a valid operating permit, and where the landowner has given the security under ORS 517.810(3) and the operator is in default, the landowner shall be held responsible for complying with the operator's reclamation plan, with written notice from the department, thirty days to commence and a requirement to pursue it diligently, failing which the department claims the bond and may do the work itself and charge it.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 517.750(7), 517.790(1) and 517.860(4) on 2026-08-02. This is a terminology trap of exactly the kind that makes a reader draw the wrong conclusion from a correctly quoted statute, and it is Hawaii's problem inverted: there the statute uses an unfamiliar word, OCCUPIER, for the familiar person on top, and a reader notices they need to look it up. Here the statute uses the most familiar word there is for somebody else entirely, and a reader has no reason to check. Twenty-five occurrences of LANDOWNER in ORS 517 were inspected individually and none of them creates a right in the person who owns the surface. Be exact about 517.860(4), because overstating it would be its own error: it bites only where the landowner GAVE THE SECURITY under 517.810(3). A mineral owner who posted no bond is not made responsible for an operator's abandoned reclamation by that subsection. WHAT IS NOT READ: ORS 517.810(3) itself beyond its cross-reference, and whether the department has ever proceeded against a landowner under this route.

ORS s. 520.220, Integrating interests or tracts within spacing unit

The DOGAMI governing board establishes spacing units for a pool or field when necessary to prevent waste of oil or gas, to avoid the drilling of unnecessary wells or to protect correlative rights. Units are of uniform size and shape for the whole pool or field, subject to zoning it, and may not be smaller than the maximum area one well can efficiently drain. Where two or more separately owned tracts are within a spacing unit, or there are separately owned interests in it, the interested persons may integrate voluntarily. In the absence of voluntary integration the board, on the application of any interested person, shall make an order integrating all tracts or interests in the spacing unit for the development and operation of it and for the sharing of production from it, and each such order shall be upon terms and conditions that are just and reasonable. As part of the order establishing spacing units the board may prescribe the terms on which royalty interests are deemed integrated without a later order. An owner who finds that a well at the prescribed location would not produce in paying quantities, or that surface conditions would substantially add to the burden or hazard of drilling, may apply to move it, and the department must notify adjacent mineral owners, any of whom may request a hearing within twenty days.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 520.220 and 520.210 on 2026-08-02. What is absent is the whole finding. There is no risk charge, no non-consent penalty, no cost-free royalty fraction, no consent percentage, no acreage threshold and no election for an owner who will not join, only the words just and reasonable. Set that against the numbers elsewhere on this record: Florida carries a nonconsenting owner at three hundred per cent of costs, Washington at one hundred and fifty, Alabama guarantees three sixteenths free of every cost, North Dakota a cost-free royalty. Hawaii's s. 182-9.5 is the other provision here that fixes nothing, and the two differ in the way that matters to an owner: Hawaii's is discretionary, the board MAY order it, where Oregon's is mandatory on any interested person's application, the board SHALL. Note also that Oregon's spacing statute expressly bars spacing units for gas storage injection, withdrawal and monitoring wells and for underground disposal wells. WHAT IS NOT READ: DOGAMI's rules at OAR chapter 632, which is where any actual terms would live, and whether any spacing or integration order has ever been made in Oregon.

ORS s. 93.640, Unrecorded instrument affecting title void as to subsequent purchaser

Every conveyance, deed, land sale contract, assignment of a seller's or purchaser's interest in a land sale contract, or other agreement or memorandum of one affecting the title of real property in Oregon which is not recorded as provided by law is void as against any subsequent purchaser in good faith and for a valuable consideration of the same real property, or any portion of it, whose own instrument is first filed for record, and as against that subsequent purchaser's heirs and assigns. The definition of the covered instruments expressly includes mortgages, trust deeds, and assignments for security purposes or assignments solely of proceeds given by purchasers or sellers under a land sale contract. A memorandum will do instead of the instrument itself, provided it contains the date of the instrument being memorialised, the names of the parties, a legal description of the real property, and the nature of the interest created, is signed by the person from whom the interest is intended to pass, and is acknowledged or proved in the manner provided for deeds.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 93.640(1) on 2026-08-02. Both limbs are required, good faith and for value AND first to record, which is the shape this record has been calling race-notice in Colorado, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Alaska, California, New York, Wyoming, Utah, Minnesota and Hawaii, as against the notice-only shape in Kansas and Texas. No Oregon opinion classifying the state was fetched, so no label is applied here, only the text. Set it against North Carolina, which is on this record as pure race: there the first to register wins and notice does not come into it at all. Subsection (2) is a separate five-day rule for assignments of sheriffs' certificates of sale, void against a later good faith purchaser for value whose assignment is first recorded if not recorded within five days of execution. WHAT IS NOT READ: any Oregon decision on what good faith requires, and in particular whether possession or inquiry notice defeats it.

ORS s. 93.710, Instruments or memoranda creating certain interests in realty

To give constructive notice of an interest in real property, a person must have documentation of the interest recorded in the indices maintained under ORS 205.130 in the county where the property is located, and that recordation, and no other record, constitutes constructive notice to any person of the existence of the interest, subject to a listed set of exceptions covering property tax, statutory liens, certain public improvement and utility chapters, local government charters, and a city's online governmental lien record. Alongside that, an instrument creating an oil, gas or other mineral interest or estate in real property, or a memorandum of it, may be indexed and recorded in the deed records of the county, and such recordation constitutes notice to third persons of the rights of the parties under the instrument irrespective of whether the party granted the interest or estate is in possession of the real property.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 93.643(1) and 93.710(1) on 2026-08-02. The second of those is aimed squarely at the thing that makes a severed mineral interest different from every other interest in land: its owner is never in possession, so any doctrine that runs notice off possession can never help them. The clause was put there by 1963 c.416 s.1 and it names oil, gas and other mineral interests expressly. The first is worth as much to a searcher and for a different reason: a statute saying in terms that the county index AND NO OTHER RECORD gives constructive notice tells you that a search which covers those indices is complete, subject only to the listed exceptions, and that a document lodged anywhere else is not charged against you. The exceptions are the qualification and they are real, including a city's electronic lien record, which is expressly made the controlling lien record to the exclusion of any informational recording in the county indices. WHAT IS NOT READ: the indices themselves, whether Oregon counties maintain a consolidated index or separate deed and mortgage books under ORS 93.610, and any Oregon decision on the reach of 93.643.

ORS s. 205.246, Instruments to be recorded; fees

Oregon county clerks keep a separate record called the Mineral and Mining Record. The statute listing the instruments a county clerk must record names it and names exactly which sections feed it: mineral and mining records required under ORS 517.030, 517.052, 517.160, 517.180, 517.210, 517.220, 517.280, 517.310 and 517.320. Read those nine back and the contents are lode claim location notices, placer claim location notices, millsite locations, the dormancy statement of claim together with the notice and affidavit of publication that extinguishes an interest, annual assessment work affidavits, the evidentiary effect of those affidavits, the certificate transferring a delinquent co-owner's interest, the recording and indexing of that certificate, and a judgment in a quiet title suit between co-owners. The clerk must also, when possible, indicate by marginal notation on the instrument that created the original mineral interest that a statement of claim or a notice and affidavit of publication has been recorded, and must cross-reference a statement of claim in the Mineral and Mining Record under both the current holder's name and the original holder's name.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 205.246(1)(s) and 517.180(9) on 2026-08-02, with ORS 205.130 for the clerk's general recording duties and the indices. The practical consequence is the reason this is a rule rather than a footnote: in Oregon the document that establishes whether a mineral interest was extinguished, or preserved, is not in the deed records, and a title search that reads the deed and mortgage books and stops has not looked in the right place. North Carolina's G.S. 1-42 book is the other named special book on this record and it holds something different, the yearly notices of intended use that stop adverse possession running across a severance. The marginal notation is the searcher's friend and the words WHEN POSSIBLE are the searcher's problem: it is not guaranteed, so a clean margin on the severing deed proves nothing. WHAT IS NOT READ: whether Oregon counties actually maintain the Mineral and Mining Record as a distinct index today or fold it into a consolidated index, how far back it runs, and how it is searched online in any particular county.

ORS s. 324.070, Imposition of tax; rate; basis of levy

A privilege tax of six per cent of the gross value at the well is levied upon the production of oil and gas within the State of Oregon, and the gross value at the well is reduced by the value of any part of it the ownership of which is exempt from taxation. The tax is measured by the value of the whole production, including what is commonly known as the royalty interest, so it reaches the royalty owner's share and not only the operator's. Gross value means the actual cash price prevailing for oil or gas of that kind, character and quality at the time it is produced, as determined by the Department of Revenue. An exemption is granted on the first three thousand dollars in gross sales value of the gross production each calendar quarter from each well, which is a per-well and per-quarter allowance rather than a rate reduction. Royalty or other interests in oil or gas owned by the state, counties, cities, towns, school districts or other municipal corporations or political subdivisions are exempt outright. And there is a credit against the tax for all ad valorem taxes imposed by state or local government on the property rights attached to or inherent in the right to produce oil and gas, on producing leases, on the machinery, appliances and equipment used in and around a producing well, on the oil and gas produced in the state, and on any investment in that property. The tax is paid quarterly, due on the forty-fifth day after the quarter.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 324.070, 324.080, 324.090, 324.110 and 324.050 on 2026-08-02. One rate for oil and for gas, with no brackets, no marginal-well band and no stripper relief, which makes it the plainest severance tax on this record to state and not the cheapest to bear. Two features are worth more than the rate. The subsection saying the tax is measured on the whole production INCLUDING the royalty interest is the statute doing openly what most severance taxes do by implication, and it is the answer to a royalty owner asking whether the tax is the operator's problem: it is not. And the ad valorem credit at 324.090(2) is wide enough that the property tax on the same production and the same equipment can consume the severance tax on it, which no other credit read on this record does. Definitions to keep: OIL means petroleum, crude oil, mineral oil and casinghead gas, and GAS means natural gas and casinghead gas, so casinghead gas falls in both; GROSS PRODUCTION is the total volume extracted including oil or gas extracted but not sold, and excludes anything reinjected for storage. WHAT IS NOT READ: whether any oil or gas is currently produced in Oregon, and what the tax actually raises.

ORS s. 324.510, Content of statement or settlement sheet

All statements or settlement sheets for oil or gas must have stamped or written on them the following words: Gross production tax deducted and paid, and payee accepts such deduction and authorizes payment to the State of Oregon. The provision sits in a short miscellaneous group at the end of the oil and gas tax chapter, alongside a duty on every person producing oil and gas in the state to furnish the Department of Revenue whatever information about production the department requires on its forms, with power to require suitable measuring devices; a quarterly reporting duty on every refinery operator processing oil or gas in the state; and a quarterly reporting duty on every person purchasing or storing oil, giving the location, identity, character and capacity of the storage receptacle. Reports are delinquent if not filed by the forty-fifth day after the quarter and the penalty is twenty-five dollars for each day of failure or refusal. After refunds and the Department of Revenue's administrative expenses, the net revenue is paid into the Common School Fund and continuously appropriated to the Department of State Lands.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 324.510, 324.520 and 324.340 on 2026-08-02. A statute that dictates the exact words printed on a royalty check stub, and makes accepting the payment an authorisation of the deduction, is not on this record anywhere else. The nearest thing is North Carolina's G.S. 105-187.83, which does something different and puts the duty on the other side: it requires the owner of a royalty interest to KEEP a record of all money received and a copy of every settlement sheet showing the volume and the severance tax deducted, and to hand them to the Secretary of Revenue on request. The destination of the money is worth noticing beside ORS 273.780, which sends the royalties on the State's own retained mineral rights to the same Common School Fund: the tax on private production and the rent on public minerals run into the same account, administered by the Department of State Lands. No claim is made here about where other states send their severance tax, because their destinations were not checked. WHAT IS NOT READ: whether the stamped words have ever been litigated, and what a payee who strikes them out achieves.

ORS s. 98.342, Miscellaneous personal property held for another person

Oregon's unclaimed property act contains no mineral proceeds provision of any kind. There is no definition of mineral proceeds, no separate abandonment period for royalties, bonuses, shut-in payments or delay rentals, and no suspense-account rule for an operator holding money for an owner it cannot find. A suspended Oregon royalty therefore falls to the catch-all: all intangible personal property not otherwise covered by the act, including any income or increment on it and deducting any lawful charges, that is held or owing in the ordinary course of the holder's business and has remained unclaimed by the owner for more than three years after it became payable or distributable, is presumed abandoned. The same section adds that property is payable or distributable notwithstanding the owner's failure to make demand or to present any instrument or document required to receive payment, so never having asked does not stop the clock. Property becomes subject to the custody of the state where the apparent owner's last known address on the holder's records is in Oregon, or where the records do not show who is entitled and the last known address of the person entitled is in Oregon. The holder reports and delivers to the State Treasurer.

Checked August 2, 2026. The negative was established on 2026-08-02 by enumeration with controls and not by any search. The instrument is ORS chapter 98, Lost, Unclaimed or Abandoned Property; Vehicle Towing, 322,865 characters fetched in one request, which contains the Uniform Disposition of Unclaimed Property Act at ss. 98.302 to 98.436. Counted case-insensitively over the whole chapter: MINERAL 0, ROYALTY 0, OIL 0. GAS returns 1 and it is GAS MILEAGE, in the vehicle towing sections, which confirms the zeros rather than qualifying them. The controls are what make them mean something: DIVIDEND 4, SAFE DEPOSIT 3, WAGES 13, UTILITY 8, INSURANCE 28, ESCHEAT 38 and THREE YEARS 12. North Carolina, Texas, Colorado and North Dakota all carry a mineral proceeds provision on this record and Oregon has none, so the substance-specific rules those states have, and North Carolina's bar on a property finder taking a cut of the underlying minerals in particular, have no Oregon equivalent. On the administrator: STATE TREASURER appears 109 times in the chapter and DEPARTMENT OF STATE LANDS once, so the page says the Treasurer because the statute does; nothing was read about when or how the programme moved. THE LIMIT: this is a whole-chapter term count over the chapter containing the unclaimed property act. It cannot exclude a mineral proceeds provision sitting in some other chapter, and none was looked for outside ORS 98.

ORS s. 105.620, Acquiring title by adverse possession

A person may acquire fee simple title to real property by adverse possession only if three things hold. The person and their predecessors in interest have maintained actual, open, notorious, exclusive, hostile and continuous possession for ten years. At the time the claimant or their predecessors first entered into possession, the person entering had the honest belief that they were the actual owner, and that belief continued throughout the vesting period, had an objective basis, and was reasonable in the particular circumstances. And the person proves each element by clear and convincing evidence. Hostile possession means possession under claim of right or with colour of title, colour of title meaning the possessor claims under a written conveyance or by operation of law from someone claiming under one. Absent additional supporting facts, the grazing of livestock is insufficient to satisfy the possession requirement. Person includes the state and its political subdivisions.

Checked August 2, 2026. Read at ORS 105.620 on 2026-08-02. [1989 c.1069 s.1; 1991 c.109 s.2; 1999 c.950 s.1]. The honest belief requirement is a deliberate legislative narrowing and it cuts against the knowing trespasser, which is a policy choice a good many states have not made. Nothing in the section says anything about a severed mineral estate, and no Oregon decision was read, so this page states the elements and refuses to say how a court would apply them across a severance. North Carolina is the state on this record where that question has a statutory answer, G.S. 1-42, and the answer there is that neither side can possess against the other without recording a yearly notice of intended use. Oregon has no equivalent, so the ordinary doctrine is all there is: possession of the surface is not possession of the minerals once they are severed, which is a proposition of general property law that this record has not verified against any Oregon authority. WHAT IS NOT READ: ORS 12.050, the limitation on actions for the recovery of real property, and any Oregon case on adverse possession of minerals.