Before the sale, estimates of annual royalty revenues were about $1 million.

The company is cautious enough about its royalty revenues to exclude them from some of its financial plans and calculations.

The royalty revenue was already over two billion Eurofrancs a year, and it had only been available for twenty-three months.

Mr. Samuel said he could not estimate the potential royalty revenue.

If the company got what it asked for, its annual royalty revenues would exceed $500 million to more than $2 billion.

After 1987 resource royalty revenue was no longer added to the fund.

And some analysts are projecting annual royalty revenue of $3 billion by 2005.

In the last quarter, the strategy paid off, as royalty revenue from patents rose nearly 25 percent to $186 million.

In 2006-7 the oil sands royalty revenue was $2.411 billion.

Although some tribes distribute royalty revenue to members, others use the money as tribal revenues.