Royalty & Lease Advisory for Aggregate, Sand & Gravel Operations

Aggregate Consulting provides independent royalty and lease advisory for operators paying royalties, landowners receiving them, and the acquirers, lenders, and counsel who need to know that the numbers under a royalty agreement actually reflect what’s coming out of the ground. We do not practice law or provide legal advice — we coordinate with counsel on contract structure and dispute matters. What we bring is the operator’s read on the technical and economic terms that make a royalty agreement work, fail, or get fought over.

What We Look At

Most royalty work — whether structuring a new agreement, auditing an existing one, or supporting a dispute — turns on a handful of specific items the parties don’t always understand the same way. The areas we work in:

Tonnage verification — independent verification of the tonnage that actually crossed the scale, against production records, scale tickets, sales records, and shipping documents
Production records and reconciliation — reviewing whether reported production reconciles with sales, inventory, and waste; identifying gaps that may indicate under-reporting, miscoded material, or lost-in-process tonnage
Royalty basis — clarifying whether royalty is paid on tonnage, FOB price, delivered price, or net-of-deductions, and what each of those means in practice
Material classification — confirming how products are being classified for royalty purposes (sand vs. gravel, base vs. spec, manufactured sand vs. natural, etc.) and whether the classification matches what is actually being produced and sold
Deductions — examining the specific deductions being taken against gross sales (transportation, processing, washing losses, royalty-free uses, internal consumption) and whether they are reasonable and supported by the agreement
Minimum royalties — evaluating whether minimum royalty provisions are being met, deferred, or credited correctly
Escalation clauses — reading escalators (CPI, market index, fixed step-up) against actual sales and confirming the right index is being applied at the right time
Audit support — building the workpapers, production reconciliations, and economic analysis needed to support a royalty audit, whether from the operator’s side, the landowner’s side, or for a third party doing due diligence
Operator and landowner economics — modeling what an agreement actually returns to each side under realistic production scenarios

What You Receive

A written advisory letter or report — tonnage and revenue reconciliation, deduction analysis, royalty calculation, and a clear statement of findings. Where the engagement is dispute-related, the report is built to be useful to your counsel and defensible if it becomes evidence.

When Litigation Is Involved

Where a royalty matter becomes a dispute, our work coordinates with your counsel. We provide the technical and economic analysis; counsel handles the legal strategy. See Expert Witness & Litigation Support for the broader litigation-support practice.

Why an Operator’s Perspective Matters

John M. Pitts, Jr. has spent 36 years owning, designing, building, and operating sand, gravel, crushed stone, and dredge-based operations across the country. Over that span we have negotiated and reviewed royalty agreements from the operator’s side, advised landowners receiving royalty, and supported third parties doing due diligence — having sat in all three chairs is what lets us take a balanced read on any given agreement. Royalty disputes turn on whether the people writing the agreement and the people performing under it understood the same things by the same words. Having someone in the room who has actually run the operation makes that conversation easier — and the resulting numbers harder to argue with.

Discuss a Royalty Review

Call 940-341-2011 or contact us to discuss a royalty review, an audit, or a structuring question for a new agreement.