HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PNC Bank, National Association, as the trustee (the “Trustee”) of the San Juan Basin Royalty Trust (the “Trust”) (NYSE: SJT), today declared a monthly cash distribution to the holders (the “Unit Holders”) of its units of beneficial interest (the “Units”) of $2,457,421.28 or $0.052724 per Unit, based primarily upon the reported production of the Trust’s subject interests (the “Subject Interests”) during the month of March 2023. The distribution is payable June 14, 2023, to the Unit Holders of record as of May 31, 2023.
For the production month of March 2023, the owner of the Subject Interests, Hilcorp San Juan L.P. and the operator of the Subject Interests, Hilcorp Energy Company (collectively, “Hilcorp”), reported to the Trust net profits of $3,607,479 ($2,705,609 net royalty amount to the Trust).
Hilcorp reported $6,434,183 of total revenue from the Subject Interests for the production month of March 2023, consisting of $6,239,196 of gas revenues and $194,987 of oil revenues. For the Subject Interests, Hilcorp reported $2,826,704 of production costs for the production month of March 2023, consisting of $1,991,045 of lease operating expense, $801,290 of severance taxes and $34,369 of capital costs.
Based upon the information that Hilcorp provided to the Trust, gas volumes for the Subject Interests for March 2023 totaled 2,078,429 Mcf (2,309,365 MMBtu), as compared to 1,649,392 Mcf (1,832,658 MMBtu) for February 2023. Dividing gas revenues by production volume yielded an average gas price for March 2023 of $3.00 per Mcf ($2.70 per MMBtu), as compared to an average gas price for February 2023 of $6.29 per Mcf ($5.66 per MMBtu).
Production from the Subject Interests continues to be gathered, processed, and sold under market sensitive and customary agreements, as recommended for approval by the Trust’s Consultant. The Trustee continues to engage with Hilcorp regarding its ongoing accounting and reporting to the Trust, and the Trust’s third-party compliance auditors continue to audit payments made by Hilcorp to the Trust, inclusive of sales revenues, production costs, capital expenditures, adjustments, actualizations, and recoupments. The Trust’s auditing process has also included detailed analysis of Hilcorp’s pricing and rates charged. As previously disclosed in the Trust’s filings, these revenues and costs (along with all costs) are the subject of the Trust’s ongoing comprehensive audit process by our professional consultants and outside counsel to ensure full compliance with all the underlying operative Trust agreements and evaluating all available potential remedies in the event there is evidence of non-compliance.