MINING CLAIMS Continued
WITHDRAWN LANDS-Continued
2. In opening reclamation withdrawn land to mining location it is
necessary that each 10-acre subdivision be mineral in character
but it is not required that every acre of the 10-acre tract be
mineral in character; consequently where a tract of land is open
to mining location and part of the land is nonmineral in character,
that part of the land can be included in a mill site----
1. In considering whether an assignee of an oil and gas lease was a bona
fide purchaser and entitled to protection in accordance with the
bona fide purchaser provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act, as
amended, the basic question is whether he in good faith and for
value acquired his interest without notice of a superior right to
the lease; he will not be considered as having constructive or im-
puted notice that an offeror whose offer was junior to that for
which the lease issued had a right to the lease superior to the
lessee, if he acted prudently, even though an extremely cautious
person might have a right to have the voidable lease canceled____
1. A protest by a junior offeror in a drawing of simultaneously filed oil
and gas lease offers which charges disqualification of a senior
offeror because the senior offeror is married to another offeror so
that neither was actually the sole party in interest in the separate
offers filed is properly dismissed in the absence of any proof that
either of the two offerors in question was not acting in his own
behalf and that under the law of the State in which the land
applied for lies a married person cannot hold or acquire prop-
erty for his sole benefit without the other spouse's consent..
2. Although a junior offeror may have been the first qualified applicant
for an oil and gas lease, if a lease was mistakenly issued to the
senior offeror and it is assigned to a bona fide purchaser and the
assignment is filed before the land office records show any action
taken against the lease, the interests of the bona fide purchaser
will be protected in accordance with the 1959 and 1960 amend-
ments of the Mineral Leasing Act and the junior offeror's offer
must be rejected__--
8. In considering whether an assignee of an oil and gas lease was a
bona fide purchaser and entitled to protection in accordance with
the bona fide purchaser provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act, as
amended, the basic question is whether he in good faith and for
value acquired his interest without notice of a superior right to
the lease; he will not be considered as having constructive or
imputed notice that an offeror whose offer was junior to that for
which the lease issued had a right to the lease superior to the
lessee, if he acted prudently, even though an extremely cautious
person might have ascertained that the junior offeror might have a
right to have the voidable lease canceled__.
OIL AND GAS LEASES-Continued
GENERALLY-Continued
4. An assignee of an oil and gas lease, if the assignment is otherwise
valid, is entitled to protection in accordance with the bona fide
purchaser provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act if his assignment
is filed before any adverse action or protest has been made
against the lease even though the assignment had not been ap-
proved before such action or protest is made____.
1. An acquired lands lease offer for a tract of land consisting of portions
of several irregularly shaped surveyed tracts of land no part of
the boundaries of which coincide with any part of the boundary
of the tract applied for need not, in addition to giving a complete
metes and bounds description of the tract tied to a corner of the
public land surveys, give the section numbers of the surveyed
tracts portions of which are included in the tract applied for-----
2. An oil and gas offer for acquired land is not defective because it is not
accompanied by a map or plat showing the location of the land
: within the administrative unit or project of which it is a part, but
the offeror may be required to submit a satisfactory showing of
such a map or plat-----
1. Acreage embraced in a lease offer which is subject to drawing to deter-
mine priority will not be charged against the offeror until the
offer has been successfully drawn....
APPLICATIONS
1. The Departmental decision in Henry 8. Morgan, Floyd A. Wallis, et
al., BLM-A-036376 (1956), affirmed by the Secretary of the In-
terior, 65 I.D. 369 (1958), is overruled to the extent that it is
inconsistent or in conflict with the conclusion reached in the opin-
ion of the Solicitor General issued December 20, 1963---
2. Oil and gas lease offers which do not draw first priority in a drawing
of simultaneously filed offers may be conditionally rejected, sub-
ject to reinstatement in the event offers with higher priorities do
not ripen into leases___.
3. Any name used by an individual, whether real or fictitious, by which
she may be known or by which she may transact business or
execute contracts, may constitute her signature if affixed by that
individual without fraudulent intent and if there is no doubt as to
the identity of the individual, and an oil and gas lease offer in
which the signed name of the offeror differs from the typed name
of the offeror in the first block of the lease form is acceptable if,
in fact, the signature is that of the offeror and the offer is, in all
other respects, acceptable_---
4. Where only one copy of an oil and gas lease offer is initially filed bear-
ing as a signature a name which differs from the name of the
offeror typed in the first block of the lease form, within 30 days
four additional copies of the offer are filed bearing the same typed
name and signature as the typed name on the original form, and
after more than 30 days from the initial filing five additional
copies are filed bearing typed name and signature consistent with
OIL AND GAS LEASES-Continued
APPLICATIONS-Continued
the original form, the offer should not be rejected if all of the
copies of the offer were signed by the offeror, but the offer will
earn priority only from the time that the last copies were filed___
5. A protest against a noncompetitive oil and gas lease offer for acquired
land is properly sustained where the offer is signed by an attorney
in fact for a corporate offeror and is accompanied only by a state-
ment of the attorney in fact as to the nonexistence of an agree-
ment between the attorney in fact and the offeror whereby the
attorney in fact will acquire an interest in any lease to be issued
and by a statement by the offeror that a third party will have an
interest in the lease and there is not filed any statement by the
offeror as to whether the attorney in fact will acquire any interest
in the lease____
6. Where only one copy of an oil and gas offer for acquired lands is filed
and thereafter within the time allowed the additional copies re-
quired are filed but such additional copies vary from the first copy
in a portion of the land description, the offer is not fatally defec-
tive and the first copy filed is deemed to be controlling despite
the fact that it was not marked as the "original" copy by either
the offeror or the Bureau of Land Management_.
7. An oil and gas lease offer signed by an attorney in fact is not to be
rejected for failure to accompany it with evidence of his authority
to sign the offer and lease if the offer contains a reference to a
land office record in which the pertinent information has been
filed___.
8. An oil and gas lease offer signed by an attorney in fact for the offeror
is properly rejected where it is not accompanied by a statement
of the attorney's possible interest in the offer and the lease, if is-
sued, and, if there is such interest, the further statements as to
the attorney's qualifications to hold an oil and gas lease as re-
quired by departmental regulation---
1. Although a junior offeror may have been the first qualified applicant
for an oil and gas lease, if a lease was mistakenly issued to the
senior offeror and it is assigned to a bona fide purchaser and the
assignment is filed before the land office records show any action
taken against the lease, the interests of the bona fide purchaser
will be protected in accordance with the 1959 and 1960 amend-
ments of the Mineral Leasing Act and the junior offeror's offer
must be rejected__.
2. In considering whether an assignee of an oil and gas lease was a bona
fide purchaser and entitled to protection in accordance with the
bona fide purchaser provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act, as
amended, the basic question is whether he in good faith and for
value acquired his interest without notice of a superior right to the
lease; he will not be considered as having constructive or imputed
notice that an offeror whose offer was junior to that for which
the lease issued had a right to the lease superior to the lessee,
if he acted prudently, even though an extremely cautious person
might have ascertained that the junior offeror might have a right
to have the voidable lease canceled___
OIL AND GAS LEASES-Continued
ASSIGNMENTS OR TRANSFERS-Continued
3. An assignee of an oil and gas lease, if the assignment is otherwise
valid, is entitled to protection in accordance with the bona fide
purchaser provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act if his assignment
is filed before any adverse action or protest has been made against
the lease even though the assignment had not been approved before
such action or protest is made-
4. Section 10 of the act of July 3, 1958, amending the Alaska Oil Proviso
of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 to require rentals for noncom-
petitive oil and gas leases in Alaska to be the same as similar
leases for lands elsewhere in the United States, is not applicable
to leases which had been granted 5-year extensions prior to the
act as to the remainder of their extended term, including a 2-year
extension resulting from segregation of the lease by partial assign-
ment under section 30 (a) of the Mineral Leasing Act as amended__
CANCELLATION
1. Where an oil and gas lease offer was filed prior to enactment of the
Alaska Statehood Act on July 7, 1958, a selection for the land was
filed thereafter by the Territory of Alaska pursuant to the grant
for the University of Alaska, and a lease was subsequently issued
in response to the offer and prior to the admission of the State of
Alaska on January 3, 1959, it is error to cancel the lease because of
the filing of the selection and it is immaterial that subsequent to
the admission of the State the land was patented to the State pur-
suant to the selection__‒‒‒
2. An oil and gas lease offer which describes land within an area over six
miles in width and within an area covering five whole sections and
parts of two end sections in width does not comply with the regula-
tion requiring that land sought for leasing must be within an area
six miles square or within an area not exceeding six surveyed sec-
tions in length or width, and a lease issued in response to such offer
is improperly issued and subject to cancellation if proper junior
offers have been filed for the land_____
3. An oil and gas lease is properly canceled where it was issued pursuant
to an application which described less than 640 acres which were
available for leasing at the time the application was filed and did
not include adjoining lands which were available for leasing----
4. In considering whether an assignee of an oil and gas lease was a bona
fide purchaser and entitled to protection in accordance with the
bona fide purchaser provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act, as
amended, the basic question is whether he in good faith and for
value acquired his interest without notice of a superior right to
the lease; he will not be considered as having constructive or
imputed notice that an offeror whose offer was junior to that for
which the lease issued had a right to the lease superior to the
lessee, if he acted prudently, even though an extremely cautious
person might have ascertained that the junior offeror might have
a right to have the voidable lease canceled----.
DESCRIPTION OF LAND
1. An acquired lands lease offer for a tract of land consisting of portions
of several irregularly shaped surveyed tracts of land no part of
OIL AND GAS LEASES-Continued
DESCRIPTION OF LAND-Continued
the boundaries of which coincide with any part of the boundary
of the tract applied for need not, in addition to giving a complete
metes and bounds description of the tract tied to a corner of the
public land surveys, give the section numbers of the surveyed
tracts portions of which are included in the tract applied for-----
2. A description in an oil and gas lease offer for acquired land of land in
a right-of-way which is excluded from the land applied for is in-
sufficient where the right-of-way is described only by giving the
course and distance of the center line and the width of the right-
of-way and by tieing the description to a quarter-quarter section
3. Where an oil and gas offer for land described as the $1/2S1/2 of a
section is deficient because it improperly describes land in the
S1/281/2 which is to be excluded from the offer, the offer cannot
be accepted for the S1/2SE1/4 because it is ascertained that the
excluded land lies in the S1/2SW1/4 of the section_‒‒‒‒‒
4. Under regulation 43 CFR 3123.8, which requires that oil and gas lease
offers for lands shown on protracted surveys include only entire
sections of land or describe all of the lands available for leasing
in each section by legal subdivisional parts, where only a portion
of a section is available, it is not proper to reject an offer for such
land which describes all of the land in the section with a state-
ment that the offer is to be deemed to include all of the land
in the described section which is available for lease if the offer
is accompanied by the first year's rental payment for the en-
tire section_____.
5. Where only one copy of an oil and gas offer for acquired lands is
filed and thereafter within the time allowed the additional copies
required are filed but such additional copies vary from the first
copy in a portion of the land description, the offer is not fatally
defective and the first copy filed is deemed to be controlling despite
the fact that it was not marked as the "original" copy by either
the offeror or the Bureau of Land Management----
6. An oil and gas offer for acquired land is not defective because it is
not accompanied by a map or plat showing the location of the land
within the administrative unit or project of which it is a part, but
the offeror may be required to submit a satisfactory showing of
such a map or plat-----
1. To qualify as actual drilling operations sufficient to extend an oil and
gas lease pursuant to section 4(d) of the Mineral Leasing Act Re-
vision of 1960, drilling must be conducted in such a way as to be a
serious effort which one seriously looking for oil and gas could be
expected to make in that particular area, given existing knowledge
of geologic and other factors normally considered when drilling
for oil and gas----
2. Where the purpose of drilling a well is only to test shallow formations
500 feet deep, known to be fresh water aquifers in the area sur-
rounding the well, where gas has been found within several
miles only in formations below 7,000 feet, and the nearest produc-
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