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website that allows mineral owners to advertise properties available for lease or purchase.

If the land men can't locate one or more of the fractional owners because the information is out of date, the state will allow the oil company to go ahead and lease the land and drill a well under a "force pooling" arrangement. Land men typically check court records and search online to locate names and last-known addresses.

Under state law, the only effort oil and gas companies are required to make is to send a letter to a mineral owner's last- known address.

The missing owners' share of any lease bonuses and production payments is given to the state, which keeps the money until the owners step forward to claim it, no matter how many years pass.

The amounts of money owed to individual owners range from less than $1 to $329,270.

Most people with substantial mineral rights know what they own and do what is necessary to make sure they receive their share, said David Sikes, past president of the Oklahoma chapter of the National Association of Royalty Owners. Missing owners tend to have smaller interests and aren't even aware they are owed money, he said.

"It's a really cool thing. It's your birthright," Sikes said. "To maximize it, you have to pay attention to what you have."

Unclaimed Property Fund

The unclaimed accounts have swelled in recent years because of a boom in leasing activity and oil and gas production from new wells. Oklahoma now produces more oil and natural gas every month than it has at any point in the preceding 19 years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The boom is largely attributable to the advent of horizontal drilling technology, which has opened the door to drilling in shale formations where traditional vertical drilling was not considered feasible.

State officials say among the reasons most royalty owners never claim their payments is that they have no experience with the oil and gas industry or don't know they have mineral interests. Nevertheless, the state must hold their money indefinitely.

The Treasurer's Office says one of its entries dates back to 1974. If the owner ever steps forward, he or she will receive $7.44. The state began keeping track of mineral owners in 1967.

Even when owners do file claims to retrieve payments, they end up with less money than they were originally owed. The state charges a 10 percent fee when the money is first deposited from force pooling leases. The money also diminishes in value over time due to inflation. Owners get none of the interest or investment returns.

The state is required by law to publish twice a year a list of the newest names of mineral owners who can't be located.

The Treasurer's Office maintains an online database, searchable by name, listing all unclaimed deposits and whether they are worth less or more than $100.

It also sets up booths every year at the state fairs in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, where people can check the database.

The state stores the money in two accounts.

When oil and gas companies make payments owed to missing mineral owners in force pooling agreements, they deposit it with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission's Mineral Owners Escrow Account. The deposits remain in that account for five years. Then they are transferred to the state treasurer's Unclaimed Property Fund, from which the state can borrow.

The Unclaimed Property Fund also receives other direct mineral- rights payments from oil and gas companies. Typically, in these cases, the companies have lost track of mineral owners who had already struck a deal with the company.

Almost every year, the state borrows from the fund, which also includes money from abandoned bank accounts, unclaimed paychecks, stocks, utility deposits and other sources.

During each of the last four years, the Treasurer's Office has made $10 million of the deposits available for appropriation by the Legislature. The Legislature has also dipped into the fund periodically to plug budget gaps. During the last two years, those allocations totaled $42 million.

'The Next Generation'

Ultimately, it's up to mineral owners to make sure county records are up to date and to determine whether they have unclaimed property in state accounts.

Keeping track of mineral owners has been a problem for as long as there has been oil and gas activity in the state, said Dean Martin, owner of Oklahoma Mineral Owners Registry, a for-profit firm that charges royalty owners a $35 annual fee to list their name in a mineral-rights owner database. The database can be searched for free by oil and gas companies.

Back in the 1910s and 1920s, people would trade mineral rights like they would donkeys and horses, Martin said.

"A lot of people accumulated mineral rights back then, and they forgot they had them and they died. The next generation doesn't know they have it and they move to California or Washington and they forget about Oklahoma," Martin said.

"Now the oil company comes along and starts drilling. They don't know about it, and the money will sit in the state literally forever."

Check the Database

"You could find a pot of gold...!" the Oklahoma Office of the Treasurer exclaims on its webpage where people can check a database with names of missing owners of mineral-rights money and other property. The reality is, most of these owners never claim their money. Searching is easy, however: Go to tulsaworld.com/unclaimed and enter at least a last name or the name of a business.

Oklahoma Watch is a nonprofit organization that produces in- depth and investigative journalism on important public-policy issues facing the state.