§ 218.302 - Late payment or underpayment charges.

(a) The failure to make timely or proper payment of any monies due pursuant to leases and contracts subject to these regulations will result in the collection by the Minerals Management Service (MMS) of the full amount past due plus a late payment charge. Exceptions to this late payment charge may be granted when estimated payments on minerals production have already been made timely and otherwise in accordance with the instructions provided by the MMS to the payor.

(b) Late payment charges will be assessed on any late payment or underpayment from the date that the payment was due until the date that the payment was received at the MMS addresses specified in § 218.51. Payments received at the specified MMS addresses after 4 p.m. Mountain Time are considered received the following business day.

(c) Late payment charges are calculated on the basis of a percentage assessment rate. In the absence of a specific lease, permit, license or contract provision prescribing a different rate, this percentage assessment rate is prescribed by the Department of the Treasury as the “Treasury Current Value of Funds Rate.”

(d) This rate is available in the Treasury Fiscal Requirements Manual Bulletins that are published prior to the first day of each calendar quarter for application to overdue payments or underpayments in the new calendar quarter. The rate is also published in the Notices section of the Federal Register and indexed under “Fiscal Service/Notices/Funds Rate; Treasury Current Value.”

(e) Late payment charges apply to all underpayments and payments received after the date due. These charges include production, minimum, and compensatory royalties; assessments for liquidated damages; administrative fees and payments by purchasers of royalty taken-in-kind; or any other payments, fees, or assessments that a lessee/operator/payor/royalty taken-in-kind purchaser is required to pay by a specified date. The failure to pay past due payments, including late payment charges, will result in the initiation of other enforcement proceedings.

(f) An overpayment on a lease or leases may be offset against an underpayment on a different lease or leases to determine a net underpayment on which interest is due pursuant to conditions specified in § 218.42.