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This seems like such a preposterous idea to me. You can buy an acre of land for $2 and just... just own it? I don't mean land ownership in general but rather a
by ConsiderCrying 6y ago
This seems like such a preposterous idea to me. You can buy an acre of land for $2 and just... just own it? I don't mean land ownership in general but rather a situation like this. So some company can just buy up the prairie and then anyone who'd want to use this for something productive (personally wouldn't consider drilling for oil productive) has to go and deal with them. That seems a bit backward, I'd rather see that land in the hands of Native Americans or, since the other option is a pipe dream, controlled by the government.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jeffdavis 6y agoIt's a lease: "The lease has a term of ten years, and, after the gavel comes down, the annual rental fee per acre would be a dollar and a half for the first five years, and two dollars for the second."
- hanniabu 6y agoThat's so ridiculously insanely cheap....is the land really that worthless?
- rurban 6y agoWell, it's one of the most famous places in the world, with tons of tourists every year. But when you start destroying this, it's worthless for sure.
- jeffdavis 6y agoCan you elaborate? What does the map look like, where do the tourists go, and what part of it will be defiled with oil & gas development? You might be right. But based on the information in the article, it might also be true that tourists don't ever notice that any of this happened.
- Miner49er 6y agoThis only gives mineral rights on a 10 year lease. The government then gets 12.5% of whatever minerals are taken.
- bryanlarsen 6y agoOver $1000 per square mile per year is a lot of money if there aren't any minerals worth exploiting on that square mile.
- jeffdavis 6y agoWell, there will be a lease auction, so you can feel free to bid $2.50 per acre per year. But basically, almost nobody is willing to even go to this land even if they did own it. Even environmental charities would probably set their sights elsewhere: jungles and waterways are almost certainly more environmentally significant.
- jacobwilliamroy 6y agoIt's worth whatever the market will pay. You can totally be "that guy" who drops 10 mil on a 2 dollar acre of land. You'd probably get in the local paper.
- jimmaswell 6y agoAs long as we still need oil and we're not in some final strerch where we're certain we can just use the last of our reserves, I'd consider drilling productive.
- lopmotr 6y agoTo use land for something productive, you usually have to have exclusive rights to it. That's exactly what this process does - gives exclusive access to whoever wants to do something productive with it. Selling land at auction is a good way to ensure it goes to whoever expects to make the most productive use of it. If an oil company gets it cheap and then makes a profit charging someone else to use it, good for them - that means they correctly predicted future demand, which is better than what anyone else did. But it's especially not a problem here because desert land in America is extremely plentiful and unwanted. It's effectively an unlimited resource. Do you know of any native Americans who want to use some remote desert but can't because they don't own it? Give them $2 to lease some. The government won't use it any more than they're already not using it so it's no use in their hands. They've already blasted big areas of desert with nuclear bombs and left it permanently radioactive so it's not even clear that the government is a good steward of land anyway.
- djrogers 6y ago> That's exactly what this process does - gives exclusive access to whoever wants to do something productive with it. No, that’s not at all what this process does. It provides limited mineral rights for the land. That is all. No surface rights and definitely not exclusive rights to the land.
- renewiltord 6y agoIt's just mineral rights lease, right? You can still go build a home there since and you'll own that land, just not the mineral rights. I think in most cases when you own land, you don't own mineral rights.
- jeffbee 6y agoIndeed, this is meaning of “real estate”.
- ivalm 6y agoIt's a mineral right, not a surface right. They can't do anything on the surface (including building the well) unless they obtain surface rights (a separate process). Mineral rights are there so they can investigate if there is oil and if they find it they can claim it without having to worry about other people claiming it. If you only lease when you know there is oil then this disincetivises prospecting, this way you lease first then prospect. If there is nothing underground then the lease is useless to you (you can't do anything with the surface and there is nothing underground). https://bwab.com/surface-rights-vs-mineral-rights-whats-the-difference/ https://bwab.com/surface-rights-vs-mineral-rights-whats-the-...
- jacobwilliamroy 6y agoYes that is what they teach american kids: you pay the fee, you own the stuff. It often turns out to be more complicated, because most of the land in the United States is stolen land. In the Hawaiian Kingdom, King Kamehameha III "invented" private property because the kingdom was starting to open up to the global world and he wanted to make sure the lands which the people occupied could not be stolen by way of foreign military invasion. Which is impressive considering that a foreign military invasion did indeed come, and those lands could not legally be seized by the invading forces. The land would need to be stolen by other means. Up until then, land was not property it was a responsibility, to the family, the community, and by extension, the nation as a whole. Land could not be owned, only stewarded. Land could not be sold for profit. A friend of mine put it nicely, he said that, to him, the buying and selling of land is like prostituting a family member, who is also an elder. It just doesnt make sense, so try not to think about it. You get too many people thinking about it at the same time, the whole system is liable to fall apart.