Texas Comptroller Lease Drop Retrieval Provenance Worksheet

Direct answer for mineral owners

Give one manual public Lease Drop attempt a neutral ID. Select Crude Oil or Natural Gas, then record the exact official path and visible labels actually used, controlled RRC lease or drilling-permit reference, any production period, access time and timezone, displayed access or result state, retained reference, source limitations, and only located, not located, or unverified. Stop before interpreting tax, production, ownership, or payment.

Key takeaways for mineral owners

• Use one public no-login Lease Drop path per attempt and separate Crude Oil from Natural Gas.
• Record only visible labels actually used, controlled reference values, access time, displayed state, and retained evidence.
• Treat cookie, JavaScript, validation, error, and access states as evidence rather than bypassing them.
• Keep secure CONG account functions, registration, login, open-records submission, and automated retrieval out of scope.
• Use only located, not located, or unverified, then stop before tax, production, property, title, ownership, payment, value, offer, legal, or transaction conclusions.

Public retrieval boundary. This article records one authorized manual attempt in the public no-login Lease Drop feature identified by the Texas Comptroller. It does not interpret a displayed tax, production, lease, permit, payer, producer, period, value, volume, status, validation, or error record. It does not establish private-property connection, title, ownership, owner decimal, royalty-payment entitlement, tax liability, value, offer quality, legal effect, or a transaction result. It does not provide legal, title, land, tax, accounting, appraisal, engineering, regulatory, investment, or financial advice. MRX provides educational information and resources only and does not buy mineral rights.

A Texas Comptroller Lease Drop retrieval worksheet answers one narrow question: exactly how was one authorized, manual public Lease Drop attempt performed? Record the official route, the selected Lease Drop - Crude Oil or Lease Drop - Natural Gas path, the exact visible labels actually used, controlled references, access timestamp and timezone, displayed state, retained evidence, source limitations, and one bounded retrieval status.

Use only located, not located, or unverified. Those terms describe the attempt. They do not decide who owns a mineral interest, whether production belongs to a property, who owed or paid tax, whether royalties should have been paid, why a payment changed, or what an interest is worth.

Start with the Comptroller’s royalty-interest boundary

The Texas Comptroller’s Crude Oil and Natural Gas Taxes FAQs includes a royalty-interest question about missing royalty payments. The agency states that it has no legal authority over private royalty-payment issues. It then identifies two informational routes: a separately requested list through open records and a public lookup using the CONG Web Inquiry system.

This worksheet owns only the public lookup route described in that FAQ. The source says a user may search with an RRC lease ID number or drilling-permit number, select either Lease Drop - Crude Oil or Lease Drop - Natural Gas, complete the appropriate fields, and use that feature without logging in.

Preserve the exact source path and labels visible at access time. Do not convert the agency’s route description into a promise that the application will be available, that a particular control will be visible, or that a displayed record is complete, current, attributable to an owner, or suitable for a private payment conclusion.

Create a neutral attempt header

Give each attempt a neutral ID such as TX-CONG-LD-01. The ID labels a retrieval session, not a lease, permit, well, property, taxpayer, payer, producer, royalty account, ownership interest, payment claim, or tax conclusion.

Record:

• the FAQ URL and launched CONG URL;
• the exact page and feature labels displayed;
• the selected Crude Oil or Natural Gas path;
• access date, time, and timezone;
• preparer role and worksheet version;
• purpose, limited to one public Lease Drop attempt;
• displayed JavaScript, cookie, access, validation, result, or error state;
• the controlled location for actual criteria and retained evidence; and
• the source limitations copied into the attempt record.

Use a new ID for every rerun. Do not overwrite an earlier attempt because the path, reference, period, interface, access state, result, validation message, error, or source guidance changed. A preserved series shows what was retrievable at each recorded time.

Choose one product path before entering a reference

Mark one source-labeled product path as selected and the other as out of scope. If both paths are relevant, create two attempts. Do not merge a Crude Oil result and a Natural Gas result into one status.

The crude-oil production-tax page and natural-gas production-tax page maintain separate product-specific tax-administration context. They do not prove which path belongs to a private mineral interest, how an individual royalty statement should be interpreted, or whether an owner has a payment or tax claim.

The product choice is a retrieval input. It is not a conclusion about the commodity produced from an owner’s property, a lease classification, taxpayer identity, payer responsibility, royalty accounting, or value.

Record only labels and values actually used

Copy the exact visible labels used in the attempt. Do not prefill a reusable worksheet with assumed interface fields. The official FAQ identifies an RRC lease ID number or drilling-permit number as reference categories and refers to completing the appropriate fields. If the live interface displays different, additional, unavailable, or incomplete controls, record that state rather than inventing a field.

For each used item, preserve:

• the exact source label;
• whether a default was displayed;
• whether the preparer changed it;
• a controlled reference to the actual value;
• any production period entered or selected;
• the action taken immediately before the displayed state; and
• the retained-evidence reference for that state.

Public placeholders can include [controlled RRC lease reference], [controlled drilling-permit reference], [controlled production period], and [controlled retained evidence]. Do not publish real identifiers, periods, results, account information, screenshots, correspondence, or private payment details in a reusable worksheet.

Preserve the displayed access and result state

The CONG application may present a normal public route, a JavaScript requirement, a cookie requirement, a navigation state, a blank form, a validation message, a result, an empty result, an error, a timeout, or another access boundary. Record what the source displayed without bypassing it.

Useful neutral state descriptions include:

• official CONG entry surface displayed;
• cookie or JavaScript requirement displayed;
• public Lease Drop feature located or not located;
• Crude Oil path selected;
• Natural Gas path selected;
• controlled reference and period entered;
• source validation or required-field message displayed;
• result page or result list displayed;
• sought controlled reference displayed or not displayed;
• error, timeout, unavailable, or access-boundary state displayed; or
• source state could not be verified.

A blank form is not a submitted search with no visible match. A submitted search with no visible match is not proof that no record exists. Preserve the action, path, controlled criteria reference, timestamp, and evidence reference that belong to the state.

Keep the public feature separate from secure CONG functions

The Comptroller’s FAQ describes other CONG functions for tax accounts, payments, refunds, balances, report errors, and data changes. Those functions can involve registration, login, identification verification, account access, filing, correction, or tax administration. They are outside this worksheet.

Do not enter credentials, register an account, open a secure area, inspect account data, change filing details, request a refund, correct a report, or interpret an account error. A public Lease Drop attempt does not authorize any of those actions.

The FAQ also describes a separate open-records route for a list related to reported volumes, values, tax-paying parties, leases, and production periods. This worksheet does not prepare, email, or submit that request. It records only the public Lease Drop attempt.

Keep tax and royalty interpretation out of the retrieval record

Official tax pages can establish which agency administers a product-specific tax program and what the pages stated when accessed. They do not decide how a private lease allocates costs, how a payer calculated an owner’s statement, whether a producer or purchaser met an obligation, or whether a royalty owner is entitled to money.

Do not copy tax rates into the reusable worksheet. Do not calculate liability, compare an owner’s deduction to an agency rate, decide who paid tax for a private transaction, or infer that a displayed record explains a missing royalty payment. Preserve those questions for an appropriately qualified reviewer with the complete governing documents and account evidence.

This boundary also separates the worksheet from the Texas severance-tax explainer, the royalty-check breakdown guide, and the post-production-cost evidence packet. Those resources own different reader jobs. This article owns one retrieval-provenance attempt only.

Do not automate or bulk-retrieve

Use the public feature manually and within the source’s displayed access rules. This worksheet does not authorize scraping, scripted navigation, repeated automated polling, bulk collection, cookie or JavaScript bypass, session manipulation, access-control evasion, or attempts to reach a secure area.

If the source requires a capability that is unavailable or presents an access boundary, record unverified. Do not work around the state merely to produce a result.

Retain evidence in a controlled location

The public worksheet should store a controlled reference, not the evidence itself. A retained-evidence record can identify:

• attempt ID and worksheet version;
• authorized repository, case system, or evidence-vault location;
• capture, note, or result filename;
• capture timestamp and timezone;
• file SHA-256 or another integrity reference;
• source URL, selected product path, and displayed page label;
• controlled criteria reference;
• access role and retention rule; and
• whether a later reviewer independently repeated the attempt.

Do not publish credentials, cookies, session tokens, actual lease IDs, drilling-permit numbers, production periods, taxpayer details, payer or producer details, result rows, tax information, royalty statements, screenshots, correspondence, contact information, property identifiers, or internal case notes. Share underlying evidence only with authorized recipients through an approved channel and for a stated purpose.

Assign only a bounded retrieval status

Choose one status after the attempt:

1. Located: the recorded public path exposed the specific controlled reference sought.
2. Not located: the recorded attempt did not expose that reference using the stated product path, values, source state, and access time.
3. Unverified: the route, selected path, labels, controlled values, displayed state, retained evidence, or source limitation was not captured well enough to reproduce the attempt.

Located does not authenticate a record or connect it to a private mineral interest. Not located does not prove absence. Unverified is the correct status when the evidence trail or source access is incomplete.

End with one neutral next question. For example: should an authorized reviewer repeat the attempt with a corrected controlled reference, should the other product path receive its own attempt ID, or should the retained reference be compared with a separately named official source? Do not end with a tax, production, property, title, ownership, payment, valuation, offer, legal, or transaction conclusion.

Protect the mineral owner’s information

Store real identifiers, criteria, results, screenshots, tax records, royalty information, property records, and correspondence in an access-controlled location. Share only records you are authorized to provide and disclose why each record is requested.

MRX provides educational information and resources only and does not buy mineral rights. A provenance worksheet improves reproducibility; it does not make MRX a tax authority, regulator, title examiner, attorney, accountant, engineer, appraiser, investment adviser, or neutral fiduciary.

Final retrieval check

Before closing the attempt, confirm that the worksheet preserves the official FAQ and CONG routes, one selected product path, exact visible labels actually used, access time and timezone, controlled reference, any period used, displayed cookie, JavaScript, access, validation, result, or error state, retained evidence, source limitations, bounded status, and one neutral next question. If one item is missing, use unverified until the record is complete.

Stop there. The next step may be another official-source retrieval or an appropriately scoped professional review. It is not a tax, production, property, title, ownership, payment, valuation, offer, legal, or transaction conclusion.

Frequently asked questions

Does a Lease Drop result prove that royalties should have been paid to me?

No. A displayed result does not establish title, ownership, owner decimal, payment entitlement, the reason a payment changed, or a private claim against a payer or producer. The Comptroller states that it does not have legal authority over private royalty-payment issues.

Should Crude Oil and Natural Gas be combined in one attempt?

No. Choose one source-labeled path for each attempt. If both products must be searched, use separate attempt IDs, controlled references, timestamps, displayed states, retained evidence, limitations, and statuses.

Does not located mean that no tax or production record exists?

No. Not located means only that one recorded attempt did not expose the controlled reference using the selected path, entered values, source state, and access time.

Can this worksheet be used inside the secure CONG account area?

No. It owns only the public no-login Lease Drop feature described by the Comptroller. Registration, login, account data, payments, refunds, report errors, data changes, and other secure functions are outside scope.

Can the worksheet calculate tax, reconcile royalties, or estimate mineral value?

No. It records retrieval provenance only. It does not calculate tax, determine liability, interpret production, reconcile a royalty statement, establish ownership or payment, estimate value, assess an offer, or provide legal, title, tax, accounting, appraisal, engineering, investment, or financial advice.

Sources reviewed for this article

• Texas Comptroller, Crude Oil and Natural Gas Taxes FAQs (accessed 2026-08-24)
• Texas Comptroller, CONG Web Inquiry (accessed 2026-08-24)
• Texas Comptroller, Crude Oil Production Tax (accessed 2026-08-24)
• Texas Comptroller, Natural Gas Production Tax (accessed 2026-08-24)