How to Read Your Royalty Check
How to Read Your Royalty Check
Your royalty check is a math problem with every input printed on the stub: volume, price, your decimal, deductions and taxes. Once you know where each lives, you can check the operator’s work in about ten minutes.
Most mineral owners glance at the bottom-line number and file the stub away. That’s understandable. A typical check detail packs a dozen columns, cryptic codes like TRD or MKD, and production months that lag the check date by two or three months. But the stub is the only record of how your money was calculated, and errors do happen.
This guide walks through a stub field by field, then looks at what four operators tell their owners: Continental Resources, Hess (now part of Chevron), EOG Resources and Hunt Oil.
Start at the top: who, what well, which month
The header tells you whose account this is and which wells are being paid. Every operator’s layout differs, but nearly all carry the same identifiers.
| Field | What it means | Why it matters |
| Owner number | Your unique ID with that operator | Put it on every letter, email and call |
| Check number / date | The payment ID (paper or direct deposit) and issue date | Needed to trace a lost or stale check |
| Property / well name and number | The operator’s internal ID for the well and its division of interest | Match it to your division order |
| County, state | Where the well sits | Sets which state’s taxes and withholding apply |
| Production date | The month the oil or gas was sold | Usually 2–3 months before the check date |
That last row trips up a lot of people. A check dated in October typically pays for July or August production. Oil usually pays a month sooner than gas, so one check can mix several production months. Lines dated a year or more back are usually prior-period adjustments, covered below.
The middle: volume, price and your decimal
This is where your money is actually made. Each line shows how much of one product the well sold, at what price, and what slice belongs to you.
- Product code. Usually O for oil and G for gas; some operators split out NGLs (natural gas liquids), condensate or plant products.
- Volume. Oil is in barrels (BBL); gas in thousand cubic feet (MCF). Many stubs show the well’s total volume and your share side by side.
- BTU factor. Gas is priced on energy content, so a factor above 1.000 means richer gas worth more per MCF.
- Price. The per-barrel or per-MCF price the operator received. Compare it against posted benchmarks for that month; a big gap deserves a question.
- Gross value. Volume × price, before anything comes out.
- Decimal interest. Your net revenue interest (NRI) in the well, often to eight decimals.
- Interest type. RI for royalty, OR for overriding royalty, WI for working interest. Continental also uses RU (royalty, unsigned) and MI (unleased mineral).
Check your decimal
Continental’s owner guidebook spells out the standard formula for a leased mineral owner:
Its example: 10 net mineral acres in a 640-acre unit with a 3/16 royalty gives 10 ÷ 640 × 0.1875 = 0.00292968. On a multi-section horizontal well, that figure is multiplied again by the allocation factor for your tract.
Your decimal on the stub should match your signed division order. If you own under more than one lease in the same well, the stub may list several decimals that add up to the division-order figure, a point Continental makes in its FAQ.
A worked line
In Continental’s sample stub, a gas well sold 34,974 MCF for a sales value of $122,007.40. The owner’s decimal was 0.02036125, so their share was 712.11 MCF and $2,484.22 gross. Multiply the well total by your decimal and you should land within a penny of your share.
The bottom: deductions, taxes and withholding
Three different things come out of your gross: post-production deductions, production taxes and income tax withholding. Most stubs keep them in separate columns, and knowing which is which is the key to spotting a problem.
Post-production deductions. These are the costs of getting oil or gas from the wellhead to a buyer. Whether they can be charged to you depends on your lease language and your state’s law. Some leases say “no deductions” or “free of costs”; if yours does and you see deductions, ask why.
| Deduction | What it pays for |
| Gathering | Moving product from the well through local pipelines |
| Compression | Pressurizing gas so it can enter a pipeline |
| Transportation | Trucking or piping product to market |
| Processing | Separating natural gas liquids from the gas stream |
| Treating | Removing water, CO2 or sulfur to meet pipeline specs |
| Marketing | Fees for selling the product |
Some of these costs show up two ways. The buyer may lower the price it pays the operator, which shows as a pricing adjustment. Or the operator may charge the cost itself, which shows as a deduction. Every operator uses its own codes for these, so look for a legend on the back of your stub or on the operator’s website.
Severance and production taxes. The state’s tax on extracted oil and gas, shared proportionally by royalty owners. Rates and exemptions vary by state, and some counties add ad valorem taxes.
Income tax withholding. This is separate from severance tax. Some states require operators to withhold state income tax, especially for non-resident owners. Federal backup withholding kicks in when the operator doesn’t have your Social Security or tax ID number. Sending a W-9 stops it going forward, but operators generally won’t refund what was already withheld; you claim it on your tax return.
Put together, a simple line might read: $1,000 gross, minus $120 in deductions, minus $70 in taxes, for $810 net.
One more thing to know at tax time. Your 1099 usually reports the gross value before taxes, deductions and withholding, so it will be higher than the cash you actually received.
What the operators tell you
Every operator publishes some version of an owner-relations page. They vary a lot in how much they explain, so it pays to read your operator’s before you call.
| Operator | Where to look | Online stubs | Pay minimum / timing | Owner contact |
| Continental Resources | Owner Relations Guidebook (PDF) with an annotated sample stub | Owner Relations Connect via Oildex | Paid by month-end; can request a minimum as low as $25; small balances paid each June | 1-844-883-5257, ownerrelations@clr.com |
| EOG Resources | Interest Owners page with an “Understanding Your Check” FAQ | EnergyLink (Enverus) | See EOG’s FAQ | 833-430-2550 |
| Hess (Chevron) | Your Hess stub and division order; no public owner page found | Check your stub | Check your stub | Number printed on your stub |
| Hunt Oil | Owner Relations page with FAQs | EnergyLink (switched from Oildex) | Mailed on the 25th; $100 minimum; smaller balances paid April and October | 214-978-6500 option 2, royacctg@huntoil.com |
Continental Resources
Continental sets the bar. Its Owner Relations Guidebook includes a full sample check detail with 36 numbered fields, each explained, plus a code legend for products, interest types, purchaser adjustments and seller deducts. Most of the field definitions in this post line up with it.
A few practical points from its FAQ. Checks go stale after 90 days, and Continental warns not to deposit one after that, because it won’t clear. It will void and reissue a check if it hasn’t arrived 20 days after issue. Leave more than three monthly checks uncashed in a row and your account goes into suspense and can be escheated to the state. For North Dakota wells, the stub also carries a PPA code telling you whether a prior-period adjustment came from ownership (01), volume (02) or price (03).
EOG Resources
EOG’s Interest Owners page is a hub rather than a manual. It lists a dedicated owner line for land and royalty questions, including check inquiries, plus a separate 1099 line (877-642-1099) and a joint-interest-billing line. Its FAQ includes sections on royalty payments, direct deposit and EnergyLink, and “Understanding Your Check.” Stubs and direct-deposit details live on EnergyLink, run by Enverus, which handles password resets and technical help.
Hess, now Chevron
Chevron closed its acquisition of Hess on July 18, 2025, and Hess became a wholly owned Chevron subsidiary. For Bakken owners, that means statements may still say Hess, or may start to carry Chevron branding as systems are merged. Watch for a new owner number, a new online portal or a new division order, and keep your old stubs until you’ve matched every well across the switch.
Hess statements follow the same pattern as everyone else’s. A Hess royalty statement entered into the North Dakota legislative record in 2021 carries columns for owner number, check number, property number and name, production month, product, lease volume, price, lease gross value, lease taxes, lease other deductions, disbursement decimal and interest type. The owner who submitted it argued that “other deductions” had grown sharply as a share of his gross royalty since 2015. Separate lawsuits filed in North Dakota in 2020 and 2022 allege improper cost accounting on Hess-operated wells; those are allegations, and Hess has contested them.
Hunt Oil
Hunt’s Owner Relations page is short and direct. Royalty checks for oil and gas are mailed on the 25th of each month, or the next business day. Hunt holds payments until your balance reaches $100, and pays smaller balances twice a year, in April and October. It warns that you won’t get a check in months when your wells had no sales.
Hunt moved its online statements from Oildex to EnergyLink. To register, you’ll need a past statement with your owner number, the payment month and the payment amount. Hunt also notes it can’t withhold federal income tax, but it will apply backup withholding if it lacks your SSN or tax ID.
A ten-minute check of your stub
You don’t need an auditor to catch the most common problems. Run these checks a few times a year, and every time something looks off.
- Match your decimal. Compare each well’s decimal to your signed division order. If they differ, add up multiple lines for the same well before calling.
- Recompute one line. Well volume × your decimal should equal your volume. Your volume × price should equal your gross.
- Sanity-check the price. Compare oil and gas prices to benchmarks for that production month. Expect a discount for location and quality, but not a wildly different one month to month.
- Track deductions as a percent of gross. A steady 10–15% that suddenly jumps to 30% is worth a question. Compare against what your lease allows.
- Read prior-period adjustments. A negative line reversing an old payment, followed by a positive line repaying it, is normal. The net of the two is what changed.
- Make sure no well disappears. If a well that paid last month is missing, it may have been shut in, sold, or put in suspense.
- Watch withholding. Unexpected backup withholding almost always means the operator lacks your W-9.
Many states set minimum stub disclosures by law. North Dakota, for example, requires a royalty owner information statement with each payment showing your decimal, your share of gross value before taxes, and your share after deductions. If your operator’s stub leaves something out, you can ask for it in writing.
If you find a discrepancy, write to the operator’s owner relations team. Include your owner number, the well, the production month, what you expected and how you calculated it. Continental, for one, asks for exactly that in writing with supporting documents.
The bottom line
Your stub is the operator showing its work. Learn the three zones (who and when, volume times price times decimal, and what comes out) and you can read any operator’s format, from Continental’s 36-field detail to a Hess CSV.
Set up online access through your operator’s portal, keep every stub, and get your W-9 and address on file. If something still doesn’t add up, call owner relations first; for lease interpretation or a pattern of underpayment, talk to an oil and gas attorney. This post is general information, not legal or tax advice.
Where 1280 Royalties can help
One question operators won’t answer is what your minerals are worth. Continental and Hunt both say outright that they can’t value your interests. That’s where 1280 Royalties comes in. 1280 is a private mineral company, formed in 2013, that buys mineral and royalty interests in Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, among other producing basins nationwide.
If you’re staring at a stub and wondering whether to hold or sell, send it our way. We can walk through what your checks are telling you about your wells and give you a no-obligation value for your interests.
Reach 1280 Royalties, LLC directly:
- Call or text: 406-309-0434
- Email: mallory@1280royalties.com
- Web: www.1280royalties.com
Sources
- Continental Resources Owner Relations Guidebook
- EOG Resources Interest Owners
- Hunt Oil Company Owner Relations
- Hess Corporation Form 8-K on closing of Chevron merger, July 18, 2025
- Hess royalty statement in North Dakota legislative testimony, 2021
- Minot Daily News: Bakken lawsuits allege financial irregularities (2024)
North Dakota Dept. of Mineral Resources presentation on royalty owner information statements