Changeflow GovPing Federal Regulation Notice on States' Decisions on Oil and Gas Marg...

Routine Notice Added Final

Notice on States' Decisions on Oil and Gas Marginal Properties Relief

FR: Natural Resources Revenue Office

Published January 6th, 2026

Detected March 14th, 2026

Summary

The Office of Natural Resources Revenue has issued a notice regarding states' decisions on participating in accounting and auditing relief for federal oil and gas marginal properties. This notice provides information on the status of these decisions.

View original document View source feed page

What changed

The Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) has published a notice detailing states' decisions concerning their participation in accounting and auditing relief programs for federal oil and gas marginal properties. The notice, published in the Federal Register, serves as an informational update on the status of these state-level decisions related to the management and reporting of these properties.

This document is primarily informational and does not appear to impose new obligations or require immediate action from regulated entities. Compliance officers should note this as an update to the regulatory landscape concerning oil and gas property management and reporting, but no specific compliance actions are mandated by this notice itself.

Source document (simplified)

Legal Status This site displays a prototype of a “Web 2.0” version of the daily
Federal Register. It is not an official legal edition of the Federal
Register, and does not replace the official print version or the official
electronic version on GPO’s govinfo.gov.

The documents posted on this site are XML renditions of published Federal
Register documents. Each document posted on the site includes a link to the
corresponding official PDF file on govinfo.gov. This prototype edition of the
daily Federal Register on FederalRegister.gov will remain an unofficial
informational resource until the Administrative Committee of the Federal
Register (ACFR) issues a regulation granting it official legal status.
For complete information about, and access to, our official publications
and services, go to About the Federal Register on NARA's archives.gov.

The OFR/GPO partnership is committed to presenting accurate and reliable
regulatory information on FederalRegister.gov with the objective of
establishing the XML-based Federal Register as an ACFR-sanctioned
publication in the future. While every effort has been made to ensure that
the material on FederalRegister.gov is accurately displayed, consistent with
the official SGML-based PDF version on govinfo.gov, those relying on it for
legal research should verify their results against an official edition of
the Federal Register. Until the ACFR grants it official status, the XML
rendition of the daily Federal Register on FederalRegister.gov does not
provide legal notice to the public or judicial notice to the courts.

Legal Status

Notice

States' Decisions on Participating in Accounting and Auditing Relief for Federal Oil and Gas Marginal Properties

A Notice by the Natural Resources Revenue Office on 01/06/2026

Document Details Published Content - Document Details Agencies Department of the Interior Office of Natural Resources Revenue Agency/Docket Numbers Docket No. ONRR-2011-0002 DS63636400 DRT000000.CH7000 267D1113RT Document Citation 91 FR 379 Document Number 2026-00023 Document Type Notice Pages 379-380
(2 pages) Publication Date 01/06/2026 Published Content - Document Details
PDF Official Content
- View printed version (PDF) Official Content
Document Details Published Content - Document Details Agencies Department of the Interior Office of Natural Resources Revenue Agency/Docket Numbers Docket No. ONRR-2011-0002 DS63636400 DRT000000.CH7000 267D1113RT Document Citation 91 FR 379 Document Number 2026-00023 Document Type Notice Pages 379-380
(2 pages) Publication Date 01/06/2026 Published Content - Document Details
Document Dates Published Content - Document Dates Dates Text January 1, 2026. Published Content - Document Dates
Table of Contents Enhanced Content - Table of Contents This table of contents is a navigational tool, processed from the
headings within the legal text of Federal Register documents.
This repetition of headings to form internal navigation links
has no substantive legal effect.
- AGENCY:
- ACTION:
- SUMMARY:
- DATES:
- FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
- SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Enhanced Content - Table of Contents
Related Documents Enhanced Content - Related Documents FederalRegister.gov uses the agency dockets published with the document to display related documents.

| DS63636400 DRT000000.CH7000 267D1113RT
(2 Documents) | | | |
| --- | | | |
| Date | | Action | Title |
| | 2026-03-03 | Notice of information collection; request for comment. | Agency Information Collection Activities: Federal Oil and Gas Valuation |
| | 2026-01-06 | Notice. | States' Decisions on Participating in Accounting and Auditing Relief for Federal Oil and Gas Marginal Properties |

Enhanced Content - Related Documents

Public Comments Enhanced Content - Public Comments Comments are no longer being accepted. See DATES for details.

Enhanced Content - Public Comments
- Regulations.gov Data Enhanced Content - Regulations.gov Data

FederalRegister.gov retrieves relevant information about this document
from Regulations.gov to provide users with additional context. This
information is not part of the official Federal Register document.

States' Decisions on Participating in Accounting and Auditing Relief for Federal Oil and Gas Marginal Properties FRN

Docket ID ONRR-2011-0002 Supporting Documents No supporting documents available Enhanced Content - Regulations.gov Data

- Sharing Enhanced Content - Sharing Shorter Document URL https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2026-00023 Email Email this document to a friend Enhanced Content - Sharing

Print Enhanced Content - Print
- Print this document Enhanced Content - Print
Document Statistics Enhanced Content - Document Statistics Document page views are updated periodically throughout the day and are cumulative counts for this document. Counts are subject to sampling, reprocessing and revision (up or down) throughout the day.

Page views 89
as of
03/14/2026 at 2:15 pm EDT Enhanced Content - Document Statistics
- Other Formats Enhanced Content - Other Formats This document is also available in the following formats:

JSON Normalized attributes and metadata XML Original full text XML MODS Government Publishing Office metadata More information and documentation can be found in our developer tools pages.

Enhanced Content - Other Formats
- Public Inspection Public Inspection This PDF is FR Doc. 2026-00023 as it appeared on Public Inspection on
01/05/2026 at 8:45 am.

It was viewed
11
times while on Public Inspection.

If you are using public inspection listings for legal research, you
should verify the contents of the documents against a final, official
edition of the Federal Register. Only official editions of the
Federal Register provide legal notice of publication to the public and judicial notice
to the courts under 44 U.S.C. 1503 & 1507. Learn more here.

Public Inspection
Published Document: 2026-00023 (91 FR 379) This document has been published in the Federal Register. Use the PDF linked in the document sidebar for the official electronic format.

Document Headings Document headings vary by document type but may contain
the following:

the agency or agencies that issued and signed a document
the number of the CFR title and the number of each part the document amends, proposes to amend, or is directly related to
the agency docket number / agency internal file number
the RIN which identifies each regulatory action listed in the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions See the Document Drafting Handbook for more details.

Department of the Interior

Office of Natural Resources Revenue

[Docket No. ONRR-2011-0002; DS63636400 DRT000000.CH7000 267D1113RT]

AGENCY:

Office of Natural Resources Revenue, Interior.

ACTION:

Notice.

SUMMARY:

The Office of Natural Resources Revenue's (ONRR) regulations provide two types of accounting and auditing relief for Federal oil and gas production from marginal properties: the cumulative royalty reports and payments relief option, which allows a lessee or designee to submit one royalty report and payment for the calendar year's production; and other requested relief, which allows a lessee or designee to request any type of accounting and auditing relief that is appropriate for production from the marginal property and meets certain requirements. By October 1 of each calendar year, ONRR provides a list of qualifying marginal Federal oil and gas properties to the States receiving a portion of Federal royalties from those properties. Each State then decides whether to participate in neither, one, or both relief options. This notice provides the public each State's decision on whether to participate in marginal property relief.

DATES:

January 1, 2026.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Mr. Robert Sudar, Market & Spatial Analytics, ONRR, at (303) 231-3511; or by email to Robert.Sudar@onrr.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Pursuant to the Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Management Act, at 30 U.S.C. 1726, and 30 CFR part 1204, subpart C, ONRR and States can relieve the lessee of a marginal Federal oil and gas property from certain reporting, accounting, and auditing requirements. ONRR's rules under 30 CFR 1204.202 and 1204.203 authorize two relief options: (1) cumulative royalty reports and payments relief option, which allows a lessee or designee to submit one royalty report and payment during a calendar year; and (2) other requested relief, which allows a lessee or designee to request any type of appropriate marginal property accounting and auditing relief that meets the requirements under § 1204.5 and is not prohibited under § 1204.204.

To qualify for the first relief option, the cumulative royalty reports and payments relief option, properties must produce less than 1,000 barrels-of-oil-equivalent (BOE) per year for the base period (July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025). Annual reporting relief will begin January 1, 2026, with the annual report and payment due February 28, 2027. If a lessee has an estimated payment on file, the payment due date is March 31, 2027. To qualify for the second relief option, the other requested relief option, the combined equivalent production of the marginal properties during the base period must equal an average daily well production of less than 15 BOE per well per day, as calculated under 30 CFR 1204.4(c).

Each State makes an annual determination as to whether it will participate in neither, one, or both relief options. This notice fulfills the requirement in 30 CFR 1204.208(f) to publish a notice of the State's “intent to allow or not allow certain relief options . . . in the Federal Register no later than 30 days before the beginning of the applicable calendar year.”

The following table shows the States with qualifying marginal properties and those States' decisions on whether to participate in neither, one, or both relief options for calendar year 2026. An “N/A” means that no properties within the State met that condition for that type of relief:

| State | Cumulative royalty report and
payment relief
(less than 1,000 BOE per year) | Other accounting and
auditing relief
(less than 15 BOE per well per day) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Alabama | No | No |
| Arkansas | N/A | No |
| California | No | No |
| Colorado | No | No |
| Kansas | No | No |
| Louisiana | Yes | Yes |
| Michigan | Yes | Yes |
| Montana | No | No |
| Nebraska | Yes | No |
| Nevada | Yes | Yes |
| New Mexico | No | Yes |
| North Dakota | Yes | Yes |
| Oklahoma | Yes | Yes |
| South Dakota | Yes | Yes |
| Utah | No | No |
| ( printed page 380) | | |
| Wyoming | Yes | No |
Pursuant to 30 U.S.C. 1726(c), a Federal oil and gas property located in a State where ONRR does not share a portion of Federal royalties with that State (that is, for 2026, a State not listed in the table above) is eligible for relief if it qualifies as a marginal property. For more information on how to obtain relief, please refer to 30 CFR 1204.205.

Unless the information that ONRR receives is proprietary data, all correspondence, records, or information received in response to this notice may be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). See 5 U.S.C. 552 et seq. If applicable, please highlight the proprietary portions, including any supporting documentation, or mark the page(s) containing proprietary data. ONRR protects proprietary information under the Trade Secrets Act (18 U.S.C. 1905), FOIA exemption 4 (5 U.S.C. 552(b)(4)), and the Department of the Interior's FOIA regulations (43 CFR part 2).

Authority: Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Management Act of 1982, 30 U.S.C. 1701 et seq., as amended by Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Simplification and Fairness Act of 1996 (RSFA, Pub. L. 104-185 —Aug. 13, 1996, as corrected by Pub. L. 104-200 —Sept. 22, 1996).

April Lockler,

Acting Director, Office of Natural Resources Revenue.

[FR Doc. 2026-00023 Filed 1-5-26; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 4335-30-P

Published Document: 2026-00023 (91 FR 379)