Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Marc Stepman on July 8, 2010 at 4:01

I guess that would explain some of the placement in sections of Haynesville shale wells. I guess they refer to them as Superpads like CHK.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Renee Rains on July 8, 2010 at 4:33

Thanks for all the information! Two more questions. 1) Do they ever include anyone just outside a section in their units? 2) Why would the oil people ask other people not in my section about me and my land? Everything is on record at our court house my deed, our lease etc..

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on July 8, 2010 at 4:36

Renee, the Office of Conservation requires that notice of application for drilling units and alternate unit wells be sent to an Interested Party list which includes all surface and mineral interests of record within the unit boundary and to those immediately adjacent but outside the boundary to a distance of 1000'. Receiving the notice letter does not necessarily indicate that the recipient is included in the drilling unit. Their mineral tract would have to be included inside the unit boundary as depicted on the plat which accompanies the notice letter.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dion Warr, CPL on July 17, 2010 at 9:41

Renee:

To answer Question No. 2, landmen may just be asking neighbors about their general knowledge and insights about you. It commonly occurs in close-knit communities where field landmen are getting to know the area, or may be trying to find out the best time to come by. Not all landowners like to answer their phones (especially if they screen calls against unknown numbers) or make themselves available to strangers, so landman will try to make themselves available and in the vicinity around the time(s) that you're out and about, or have a neighbor introduce you to them. If you're leased, they may be wanting to 'scope you out' to inquire about pipeline / flowline routing, a mineral or royalty purchase, whatever.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dion Warr, CPL on July 18, 2010 at 16:49

Hardage:

This is true. Sometimes a neighbor just wants to watch the landman chase his tail and laugh about it; but other times, a neighbor whose had their fill of a neighbor will give a landman a good tip to find somebody, for their own reasons.

I remember a particular landowner that I had to track down that would never (ever) answer a call, and all the neighbors would talk about him being a cantankerous old coot. Some of them that were 'rooting for me' so that my client would acquire enough leasehold to reenter and rework a well even told me not to go talk to him until I had leased everyone else I could before he would raise cane and start calling people and trying to talk them out of leasing. (I followed that advice.)

Apparently one of them got their fill of him for some reason or another and flagged me down while I was driving around and told me this particular landowner's usual schedule for that afternoon (that he usually would go back to his house around seven), but his wife would be home, and was very nice and I should go knock on his door and introduce myself and wait on the porch for him to come back. So I did just that, and the man that stopped me was correct. The gentlemen's wife (who seemed to never meet a stranger) invited me to sit on the front porch, brought me a glass of lemonade, and even sat and talked with me after I introduced myself and stated my business while we waited for him to return.

Sure enough, at about seven, the man pulls up, gets out of the truck, looks at my truck, looks at the porch, and wrinkles his face as he winced and started his walk up to the house. He walked past me and sat down, looked at his wife, then looked at me and said, "You must be the landman that's been talking to everybody around here." I nodded as she went inside. He said, "I suppose that you gotten leases on at least 80% of this unit by now." I raised a corner of my lip in a slight grin, and nodded again. He grunted, walked past me again, announced to his wife through the screen door that he was going to the shed, then gruffed, "Follow me if you want to talk to me."

When we got to the shed, he pulled out a folded up set of papers, unfolded them and thrust them into my hand. I started to read. He had made a copy of a lease that I had presented to another landowner two weeks prior for review, and had marked the form up. Then he had written notes on the back as to what terms he would accept. Before I had a chance to look up and part my lips to say anything, he said, "I know your client won't accept them, and I ain't changing nothin', so just let 'em know you talked to me, and this is what I want, and that's that. Now, go on out of here so I can go in and eat supper." Never shook my hand, never wanted to know my name, nothing.

I walked back to my truck with his 'counteroffer' in my hand. As I swung the door open to get into the truck, he raised his voice to ask me, "So who told you where to find me?" I knew that no one was supposed to have told me, so I shrugged my shoulders. He shook his head, disgusted, and walked up the steps of the porch and into the house.

Later, I talked to the guy who had flagged me down. I started to tell the story, and he just started laughing. He let me know that the old man had been avoiding me for a month, at first because he didn't know me, then after he'd had a chance to ask around, because he wanted to talk to other people to convince them not to sign before he would meet me, then lastly because he couldn't get anyone on his side and I had leased everybody he had talked to. It turned out that the old man had just stiffed his informant on a cow, and the guy just wanted to tick him off. "You had to go see him though, didn't you?" I nodded. The neighbor just laughed again. He was right; I had been asked a couple of times by the client before that meeting why I hadn't caught up with the old man. And the only reason I had was because he had tweaked one of his neighbors.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Cheerleader on July 18, 2010 at 17:29

You can't make this stuff up!!!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sarah on July 18, 2010 at 19:57

Dion you make being a landman sound like so much fun. At least it's interesting. Thanks for sharing the story.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page