If you operate any well on a federal or tribal lease, ONRR owns your month-end. The Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR, part of the U.S. Department of the Interior) collects monthly production and royalty data for every producing lease on federal or tribal land, regardless of which state the lease sits in. A lease in New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, or Colorado filing with the state still files separately with ONRR. The two filings have to agree.
ONRR’s core monthly filings are the OGOR (Oil and Gas Operations Report) and the royalty report (Form MMS-2014 is the legacy name, though the current process runs through eCommerce). OGOR covers the production data; the royalty filing covers the dollars owed to the federal mineral owner. Together, they are the federal government’s monthly view of what came out of the ground and what it owes the Treasury.
Federal reporting is less forgiving than any state filing. Error letters from ONRR are specific, and back-and-forth on a single mistake can run for months.
What ONRR Collects Monthly
OGOR is filed monthly in three parts:
- OGOR-A: produced volumes per well (oil, gas, water).
- OGOR-B: disposition and sale of produced volumes.
- OGOR-C: inventory reconciliation, beginning and ending.
Alongside OGOR, the royalty reporting captures:
- Sales volumes per lease
- Sales value and unit price
- Royalty due based on lease terms and applicable deductions
- Transportation and processing allowances where permitted
ONRR reports go through the eCommerce reporting system. The OGOR filing and the royalty filing have related but distinct data sets, and ONRR’s internal audit expects them to reconcile against each other and against the state’s production filing for the same lease.
When Federal Reports Are Due
OGOR is generally due by the last day of the month following production. February production is due by the end of March. Royalty reports and payments typically follow, with exact deadlines depending on lease type and filing history. ONRR’s published deadlines for any given year should be confirmed on onrr.gov.
Late filings are penalized with interest and, for persistent issues, compliance actions. Federal leases can be put in arrears status, which affects future permit approvals and lease transactions.
The Three-Way Reconciliation
What makes federal reporting harder than state reporting is the three-way match:
- Field data: what the pumpers captured in gauges, run tickets, and meter reads.
- State filing: what the operator reported to the state agency (OCD in New Mexico, WOGCC in Wyoming, DMR in North Dakota, ECMC in Colorado).
- ONRR filing: what the operator reported to the federal government.
All three have to tell the same story for the same lease. When they diverge, ONRR’s internal audit compares against the state filing and the purchaser statements, and the operator gets a letter asking why.
The Data Chain Behind OGOR
Every OGOR line starts in the field:
- Pumper gauges: daily, on every lease tank, temperature- and BS&W-adjusted.
- Run tickets: per pull, tied to the correct lease and API.
- Gas meter reads: per well or per allocation point.
- Flare and vent volumes: documented method.
- Water disposition: hauled, injected, or evaporated.
- Purchaser statements: reconciled against field data.
For multi-state operators with federal leases, the chain is the same regardless of state. What differs is the multiple filings that data has to support: the state’s monthly, ONRR’s OGOR, and the royalty filing.
How GreaseBook Supports Federal Operator Workflows
GreaseBook captures the daily gauges, run tickets, meter reads, and dispositions in the field on a phone or tablet. On the operator side, the data rolls up per lease and per well in a format that feeds both the state monthly filing and ONRR’s OGOR.
GreaseBook does not file with ONRR. The eCommerce reporting and the royalty submission stay with the operator or the operator’s designated federal filer (many operators use specialized revenue accounting firms for federal royalty work). What GreaseBook solves is the data collection layer that feeds every downstream filing. When the state filing and the ONRR filing and the purchaser statement all agree, it is because the field data was clean before any of them were built.
A multi-state operator with federal leases in Wyoming, New Mexico, and Utah described the change this way: “We used to have three different spreadsheets for three different filings, and they never quite matched. Now the gauge goes in once in the field, and every filing pulls from the same clean data set.”
GreaseBook captures pumper data once and feeds state filings, ONRR OGOR, and royalty reporting from the same source.
See how GreaseBook works →Common ONRR Filing Mistakes
- OGOR and state filing don’t reconcile. When the state report and OGOR disagree for the same lease, ONRR flags the difference and the operator has to explain it.
- Sales value wrong because of allowance errors. Transportation and processing allowances are allowed by ONRR under specific rules. Misapplied allowances are the most common royalty audit finding.
- Wrong lease number. Federal lease numbers, tribal allotment numbers, and communitization agreement numbers get confused. Getting any of them wrong throws the whole filing.
- OGOR-C inventory reconciliation off. Beginning inventory plus produced minus sold should equal ending inventory. When it doesn’t, OGOR-C kicks a discrepancy.
- Late or missing purchaser payments on the royalty side. Royalty owed to the federal government doesn’t wait. Interest accrues and compounds.
Wrong Fit for This Page
If you are a federal operator running Quorum, P2 BOLO, or a similar production accounting stack with dedicated federal filers and integrated ONRR exports, you don’t need help on the data capture side. This page is for the federal operator running 10 to 200 wells across federal leases, still capturing field data by pumper and still reconciling filings by hand.
FAQ
Does GreaseBook file with ONRR directly?
No. ONRR filing still goes through eCommerce Reporting. GreaseBook is where the well-level allocations and run ticket data get captured clean before they feed the monthly reports. If your royalty accountant already has a clean upstream feed, GreaseBook isn’t replacing that.
What is OGOR?
OGOR is the Oil and Gas Operations Report filed monthly with ONRR for every producing federal or tribal lease. It covers production volumes, disposition, and inventory.
Is ONRR the same as BLM?
No. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) handles lease permitting and operations oversight on federal land. ONRR, part of the Department of the Interior, collects and audits production and royalty data for those leases. Both agencies touch federal operators; their jobs are different.
When is OGOR due?
Generally by the last day of the month following production. March production is due by the end of April. Confirm current deadlines on onrr.gov.
What is Form MMS-2014?
MMS-2014 is the legacy name for the federal royalty reporting form, originally under the Minerals Management Service (MMS). MMS was reorganized into ONRR and BSEE in 2010–2011. The royalty reporting process now runs through ONRR’s eCommerce system.
Related Pages
- Oil and gas regulatory production reports: the pillar guide to state and federal production filings.
- New Mexico OCD Form C-115: New Mexico filings that sit alongside ONRR for federal leases in the state.
- Wyoming Form 2: Wyoming filings that sit alongside ONRR for federal leases in Wyoming.
GreaseBook captures the pumper's daily allocations at the well and lease level, so OGOR-A, OGOR-B, and PASR roll up from data that already matches the royalty math. Because ONRR calculates interest on late filings per month, per line.
See how GreaseBook works for federal lease operators →