Robert M. Reynolds had some interesting points about the mineral rights royalties debate raging in south Arkansas’ brine lithium industry. But limited space kept some historical perspectives out of the story a couple of weeks ago.
The very term “royalty” in the mineral rights sense traces back to where you might have guessed, the king or queen.
“The term originated from the payments owed to the English crown for extracting resources from its property,” according to the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute.
“Yes,” said Reynolds, president of Shuler Drilling in El Dorado and president of the South Arkansas Minerals Association. “This is one of the very few countries in the world where people own property rights.
“Elsewhere the king owns the property, whether that’s a hereditary king or a parliamentary king, or just a homegrown dictator.”
“I don’t think people from other countries, like Canada, where Standard Lithium is from, understand [the American system],” he said.
Despite Reynolds’ point, he said that Arkansas law gives the state Oil & Gas Commission the duty of setting royalties on elements like bromine or lithium found in underground brine. The commissioners will take up the topic at their meeting Sept. 24 in El Dorado.
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