How to generate a report of lease expirations in the next 90 days

Lease expirations can create valuable opportunities for mineral-rights investors, landmen, operators and property professionals. A lease approaching its end date may require renewal, renegotiation, assignment or a decision to let the rights lapse. Finding those records early gives your team time to investigate ownership, production history, permitting activity and competing interests.

Shale Navigator brings lease offers, available mineral rights, property information, drilling permits and related infrastructure into an interactive mapping and reporting environment. This guide explains how to build a practical 90-day lease expiration report, review the results spatially and turn the output into a focused research list.

Define the reporting window

Start by deciding what “next 90 days” means for your project. Use the current date as the beginning of the search and set the end date exactly 90 calendar days later. A rolling window is usually more useful than a fixed quarter because it keeps the report aligned with the work your team needs to do now.

Record the date on which the search was performed. Lease records can change as renewals, extensions, assignments and releases are recorded. A report generated on 1 July will cover a different group of agreements from one generated on 15 July, so retaining the search date helps analysts compare results over time.

If your organisation works across several US states, check whether each jurisdiction presents lease dates and property records in the same way. Local recording practices, data refresh schedules and terminology may vary. Treat the 90-day filter as a screening tool that should be confirmed against source documents before a commercial decision is made.

Open the relevant map layers

Sign in to Shale Navigator and open the map view covering the shale play, county or operating area of interest. Turn on the lease-related layers first, then add property boundaries, available mineral rights and drilling permits where appropriate. A clear map makes it easier to see whether an expiring lease sits near active wells, proposed locations or a larger ownership block.

Use the map to narrow the geography before generating the report. You might focus on a particular basin, a group of counties or a corridor surrounding existing infrastructure. For an Australian investment team assessing US assets from Brisbane, Perth or Sydney, this geographic step can prevent a broad national dataset from obscuring the small number of parcels that deserve immediate attention.

Adjust the map scale and inspect clusters rather than treating each result as an isolated record. Several leases expiring near one another may represent a single negotiating opportunity, a farm-in package or a gap in an operator’s acreage position. Conversely, a lone record near no current activity may need a lower priority.

Apply lease expiration filters

Open the lease or rights search controls and select the field associated with expiration, end date or lease term. Set the lower boundary to today’s date and the upper boundary to the date 90 days ahead. Exclude records that have already expired unless your research specifically includes late renewals, reinstatements or unresolved title matters.

Add filters that make the output commercially useful. Depending on the available data, these may include state, county, shale play, operator, lessor, acreage, lease status or record type. If the purpose is to identify acquisition targets, a filter for available mineral rights can help separate prospective records from parcels already tied to active development.

Do not assume that every matching record represents an immediately actionable opportunity. A lease may contain extension options, a production-based continuation clause, a shut-in provision or a memorandum whose underlying agreement has different dates. The initial report identifies records for investigation; it does not replace a review of the instrument, title chain or legal status.

Add development and infrastructure context

Once the expiration filter is active, add drilling permits and nearby well information to the map. A lease expiring near recent permit activity may deserve priority because the operator could be preparing to preserve or develop the position. Permit timing, well status and operator concentration can help distinguish active acreage from dormant holdings.

Technology changes can also affect how quickly drilling activity appears in the data. Review this drilling technology checklist when interpreting permit trends, particularly if a lease sits in an area where pad development, longer laterals or more efficient completion methods are changing the pace of activity.

Add pipeline layers to understand whether a nearby lease has a plausible route to market. Gathering systems, transmission connections and planned infrastructure may influence the commercial value of acreage, although proximity to a line does not guarantee capacity or access. In Australia, where long distances between production areas and export or domestic demand centres are familiar market considerations, this infrastructure perspective can be especially useful when comparing US opportunities with local energy investments.

Review records before exporting

Click through each candidate record and check the core fields before adding it to a final worklist. Review the stated expiration date, parties, acreage, county, operator, record status and any available notes. Look for duplicate entries caused by amendments, assignments or multiple parcels associated with the same lease.

Compare the lease results with property and mineral-rights layers. The apparent leaseholder may not control every mineral interest within a parcel, and surface ownership may differ from mineral ownership. A record that appears attractive on the map could involve split estates, partial acreage, overlapping reservations or an existing assignment that changes the practical negotiating party.

Use the available record detail to classify each result. For example, label entries as urgent review, monitor, likely extended or requires title research. This simple triage makes the exported file more useful than an unfiltered list and gives attorneys, landmen and investment analysts a common starting point.

Generate and organise the report

When the filtered results are ready, use the reporting or export function available in your Shale Navigator account. Select the fields your team will need, such as lease identifier, expiration date, county, state, play, acreage, operator, mineral-rights status and map reference. If the platform offers different report formats, choose the one that fits your workflow, such as a spreadsheet for analysis or a printable report for internal review.

Name the file with the search date and geographic scope. A useful format might include the state, basin, 90-day window and export date. Keep the original export unchanged, then create a working copy where analysts can add contact status, title findings, estimated value, renewal probability and next action.

Sort the working report by expiration date so the earliest deadlines appear first. A second sort by county or operator can reveal clusters that support coordinated outreach. Use consistent notes and status values across team members, especially when one person is working from Melbourne and another is coordinating with US-based land professionals in Houston or Denver.

Validate findings and establish follow-up

Before contacting an owner or operator, confirm the expiration information against the recorded lease, memorandum, assignment documents and any available production evidence. Check for extensions, continuous-development clauses and wells that may preserve the lease under its terms. Legal interpretation should come from qualified counsel familiar with the relevant state’s oil and gas law.

Use infrastructure research to add commercial context to the priority list. This pipeline permit guide can help explain what proposed or pending pipeline applications may indicate about future gas movement, although applications remain subject to approvals, construction schedules and market conditions.

Set a recurring review schedule rather than generating a single report and leaving it untouched. A weekly or fortnightly refresh can capture new permits, amended records and changing lease statuses during the 90-day window. For teams working to Australian business hours, an automated routine or shared task queue can keep US records moving between Sydney, Perth and North American offices without relying on one person to repeat the search manually.

Use the seven-day free account to test the workflow on a defined basin or county, then assess which data layers and reporting functions support your due-diligence process. Build a dated lease-expiration report in Shale Navigator, prioritise the records with the strongest development and infrastructure signals, and move the highest-value opportunities into title review and timely outreach.