Permits have been filed around or on my minerals, does this mean they are getting ready to drill?

In some states, permits can tell you a lot about drilling activity, but in others, they don’t mean much. Wyoming is a first to file state, which means operators use permits to secure a future option to develop minerals under certain lands. Unfortunately, this has led to a major land grab by operators that don’t intend to drill any time soon. The table below illustrates the conversion rate of permits for select operators in Wyoming between 2015-2018, which is to say how many permits actually turned into drilled wells.