Royalty Checks: "O" "G" "P"

Just for the fun of it: does anyone know what the letters "O" "G" and "P" represent on royalty checks?

O: proceeds from oil sales

G: proceeds from natural gas sales

P: proceeds from sales of plant products

Plant products: As the gas is processed and purified for transportation, by-products like natural gas condensate, sulfur, ethane, and natural gas liquids like butane, propane, isobutane, and pentanes are produced and sold. Source.

[Hopefully we'll never see "E" "D" or "M" on royalty checks: Excise tax; Distribution tax; or Medical (healthcare funding) tax.]

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By the way, question/answer on my FAQs page:

Can you give me an example of how big a royalty check should be by owning "fill in the blank with the amount of mineral acres you own."

A mineral rights owner in North Dakota might mention over a cup of coffee that she gets "a 1/8 royalty" on her mineral rights That individual might have no idea what that means; I certainly did not know what it meant years ago when my dad would tell me that he would get 1/8th royalty if they struck oil where he owned mineral rights.

Here's not an uncommon example. Someone inherits or buys or is given 10 mineral acres. Let's say her well is spaced at 640 acres. Therefore, the mineral owner with 10 mineral acres has 1.56% of the 640 acres. Of that percent, the mineral rights owner will get 1/8th royalty (or 12.5%) of the oil. If one multiplies those two numbers (1.56% x 12.5%) one owns 0.20 percent of the oil that comes out of that well. It is not unusual for a Bakken well in North Dakota to produce about 300 barrels/day for the first month, but declines quickly after that. Multiplying the 300 barrels by the 0.20 percent (300 * 0.002) one gets 0.6 barrel/day. At $60/barrel, that would work out to about $36/day, or about $1,080/month. I don't know the tax penalty, but a 12% extraction/production tax would not be unreasonable so, at least $135 would be taken out by the state before you got your royalty check. There may be other taxes/fees I am not aware of, but at least that's a start. How much would it have cost you to buy those 10 mineral acres in the first place? At $2,000/acre it could have cost you $20,000 and there is every possibility that the land would never be drilled on. [Since the original posting, the wells have become significantly better. It is not unusual for a good well to produce 100,000 barrels in the first six months. If you have such a well, 0.002 x 100,000 bbls = 200 barrels. At $70/bbl, that could be as much as $14,000 for the first six months of production. Update, February 8, 2011.]

I am no authority or expert on this, so I could be wrong, but this is my limited understanding.  It will be tedious, but there is a long discussion regarding royalty checks, the time line for receiving a royalty check, and other information at this site. When you get there, scroll down to the comments. Lots of interesting information.