News Release
San Juan Basin Royalty Trust Declares No Cash Distribution for November 2025
DALLAS, Texas, November 17, 2025 Argent Trust Company, as the trustee (the “Trustee”) of the San Juan Basin Royalty Trust (the “Trust”) (NYSE: SJT), today reported that it will not declare a monthly cash distribution to the holders of its units of beneficial interest (the “Unit Holders”) due to excess production costs for the Trust’s subject interests (“Subject Interests”) incurred during prior periods, as well as continued low natural gas pricing. Excess production costs occur when production costs and capital expenditures exceed the gross proceeds for a certain period. The balance of cumulative excess production costs is currently approximately $10,452,021 gross ($7,839,016 net to the Trust), a decrease in the deficit of $1,178,604 gross ($883,953 net to the Trust) from last month’s reporting period. Hilcorp will continue to charge the balance of excess production costs to the Trust’s net proceeds each month. Until the balance is paid in full, the Trust will not receive royalty income as all net proceeds will be applied to the balance of excess production costs. No cash distributions will be made by the Trust until future net proceeds are sufficient to (a) repay the balance of excess production costs, accrued as a result of Hilcorp San Juan L.P.’s drilling of two new horizontal wells in 2024, (b) replenish a reserve in the amount of $2,000,000, and (c) repay the principal and interest on the Trust’s line of credit at Texas Bank (“Line of Credit”), after which time, the Trust will resume distributions of the royalty income to the holders of the Trust’s units of beneficial interest.
Hilcorp reported $4,725,794 of total revenue from the Subject Interests for the production month of September 2025, consisting of $4,608,663 of gas revenues and $117,131 of oil revenues. For the Subject Interests, Hilcorp reported $3,547,190 of production costs (excluding the balance of excess production costs) for the production month of September 2025, consisting of $3,051,095 of lease operating expenses, $328,764 of severance taxes, and $167,331 of capital costs.
Based upon information provided to the Trust by Hilcorp, gas volumes for the Subject Interests for September 2025 totaled 2,206,654 Mcf (2,451,838 MMBtu), as compared to 2,283,656 Mcf (2,537,396 MMBtu) for August 2025. Dividing gas revenues by production volume yielded an average gas price for September 2025 of $2.09 per Mcf ($1.88 per MMBtu), a decrease of $0.20 per Mcf ($0.18 per MMBtu) as compared to the average gas price for August 2025 of $2.29 per Mcf ($2.06 per MMBtu).
This month’s Trust administrative expenses totaled $21,200. The decrease in administrative expenses was attributable to differences in timing of the receipt and payment of certain expenses by the Trust. Interest income in the amount of $98 and a draw of $13,234 from the Line of Credit will be used to pay the balance of Trust administrative expenses for the month of November, which will bring the outstanding principal balance on the Line of Credit to $306,674.
Pursuant to the Amended and Restated Royalty Trust Indenture, dated December 12, 2007 (as amended on February 15, 2024, by the First Amendment to the Amended and Restated Royalty Trust Indenture), the Trustee is authorized to retain, in its sole discretion, a cash reserve for payment of Trust liabilities that are contingent or uncertain or otherwise not currently due and payable. Cash reserves were utilized to pay interest accrued on the Line of Credit each month from July through October 2025. In November 2025, cash reserves in the amount of $2,031 will be utilized to pay interest on the Line of Credit, which will bring the balance of cash reserves maintained by the Trust to $25,208.
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 the Trust’s professional consultants and outside counsel to analyze compliance with all the underlying operative Trust agreements and evaluate potential remedies in the event there is suspected non-compliance.