Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Two Dogs, Pirate on August 14, 2010 at 9:27

Especially the good looking women. Not meant to single out this landwoman, don't know her, she may be able to make a freight train take to a dirt road for all I know.

Permalink Reply by Ray on August 14, 2010 at 13:25

Thanks Duece Dog.... I'm working on just that.

I was so mad yesterday I broke out in hives. My boss wanted to send me home!!

I could care less about the money... I care about their actions with my family.

Permalink Reply by Two Dogs, Pirate on August 14, 2010 at 13:41

If your cousin is an interdict then everything will be all right. IMO no court would side with the oil company.

Permalink Reply by reallyoldguy on August 14, 2010 at 14:33

Two Dogs: I Totally agree. No oil/gas company would want to see this end up in a court room, as a judge would certainly side with the landowners in this situation.
Reagan, most of these operators have a Sr. Land Advisor that is in charge of various regions(Northern, Southern, atc.) Would it be possible for you to contact the area land advisor for this company and explain the behavior of the represetative that you've been dealing with. I have to believe this behavior would not be condoned ar accepted by any reputable oil/gas company. As mentioned above, they would not want to see this end up in a court room...

Permalink Reply by Carter on August 17, 2010 at 18:08

Mark A. Virant - is one of the in house guys in charge of the San Augustine area if I am not mistaken. He is out of the Dallas office of Encana. I don't have that contact with me, as I am out on a project right now, but if you call information for Encana in Dallas and ask for his contact, they will probably put you through to voice mail.

In any case, if you are angry, then voice your complaint. To be fair, you don't have enough acreage to spend too much time getting upset over it, but by all means let them know how you feel. I think you would be wasting time thinking about suing, etc., with that type of low acreage, is it worth the trouble? But you might be surprised what a little indignation might do.

As for the landman involved, sure it seems harsh but she was just trying to keep her job and "get some ink" when she contacted the other relatives. No commissions for doing it, nothing personal, more than likely, though I have been quite unimpressed at the quality of landmen working East TX.

Sounds like you got a decent price, and decent royalty. I'd make a few calls, bark a little bit, and then let it go.

Best of luck.

Permalink Reply by Ray on August 18, 2010 at 4:00

Carter - Thanks for the tip. I emailed Mark Virant and D Rigsby last week. I just left Mark a message on his VM.
I am not the suing type. Plus, it's not my situation to even sue about.

Sue is such a short little weird word; seems like it should be bigger and more powerful.

Regan

Permalink Reply by Dan Arnold on August 18, 2010 at 10:48

I will say that EnCana is a very good company with a well earned reputation for the way they work with land and/or mineral owners. An individual landman may be hired by a broker and poorly represent the client and the broker. These people are usually fired pretty quickly. No reputable company will stand for abusive or crooked landmen representing them. A broker has to have landmen who are both diligent and courteous, because they need to be keeping clients over the long haul. I imagine that by now that landman is looking for work elsewhere, or that broker won't be working for EnCana much longer.

Permalink Reply by Ken Miklos on August 18, 2010 at 19:43

Welcome to the oil business Regan. Three suggestions.

Regarding the issue of the land agent you have encountered,
if contact is made with Encana, if that is the company, they will likely have someone of a higher professional calibre contact you. Encana is a Canadian company and they have a very high ethical standard north of the border. Given this, a letter or email to their president, Randy Erisman in Calgary (check their website) outlining your concerns and request his assistance in having someone with a much higher level of professionalism contact you should get the ball rolling fairly quickly. I expect someone from Encana will contact you directly. Also, it will alert the head office of this issue. This is one they would likely take action on. I say this because of their industry leading policies in Canada. This may be one that has not made it to the US, but there is a good chance your making contact could lead to changes.

As to your family dynamic,
suggest you contact them advising them not to sign anything as you are making some enquiries and will report back. You may consider hiring a representative. You appear to be a tightly wound individual and this business can be very taxing emotionally. Also, there are legal considerations when advising or representing family members. And there is your time. An independent advisor is often viewed as an expert whose advise is not tainted. This helps to build consensus.

As to your mineral rights,
It helps to 'understand what it is that you don't know', and you don't know the oil business. Encana didn't get where they are by being soft or stupid. Having an evaluation of your mineral rights completed will give you a good idea of value and outline strategies to capture this value. Is Encana the best company? A good evaluation will distill this highly technical business into terms a layman can understand and the conclusions should be logical to just about anyone. Most importantly, It should be economicly driven and specific to your mineral rights and circumstance, versus your neighbor or what is happening in the next township. The representative can then work with you to develop a strategy and represent your interests at the negotiating table.

Usually they will be aligned with an attorney to assist with distilling the business issues into a contract, which is a very important step. It is usually not in the mineral owners interest to use an industry lease form.

If you care to drop me an em (woodlandresources.ca), I can put you in touch with someone in Houston who does this type of work.

Best of Luck

Ken Miklos

ps: you have a lot to look forward to by becoming a non smoker - hope you succeed Regan!

Permalink Reply by Teacher on August 19, 2010 at 1:49

We had a similar problem with a landman several months ago. He wanted to bully us to signing for $350/acre for unlimited depths and no restrictions. My blood pressure seriously went up every time he called. Finally, I wrote a letter to the managing president of the company and told him to never have that man call me or my husband again. The landman also behaved similarly with the elderly gentleman that owns all his minerals and approx. 25% of the unit. While the gentleman's wife was in the hospital dying, the landman was still calling....even after he was told the circumstances. He finally turned it over to his lawyer.

Even though the company was aware that people had reserved their deep minerals (past 10,500ft), the company went ahead and put a well down to 11,500ft. What kind of law suit do you think that company is about to get into?

Permalink Reply by Ray on August 19, 2010 at 2:10

Ken - thank you for the advice. I have had contact with Encana directly; I can see they are really nice people. Honestly, I am just fine financially; I can sit on this forever. I was so upset by the way the person treated our family, not the lease business.

Regan

Permalink Reply by Charles on August 19, 2010 at 2:56

ANY TIME, ANYONE tries to pressure me, I tell them to take a hike. Then I'll contact a reputable company and see if they're interested. Then we can sit down a talk. If that broad keeps calling, take a restraining order out on her....
I'd be sure all other family members are aware of her and her tactics.

Permalink Reply by Jim on August 19, 2010 at 12:09

Listen, as a person in the industry of which you have become disheartened, I would like to first apologize for the actions of that particular landman. I, of course, do not know all of the facts in your situation, but if I simply take every bit of your story as factual with nothing left out of the story, I want to apologize to you for your unfortunate experiences with the Landman and the Oil & Gas Industry; First I apologize to you as a fellow American and Human being for such a poor experience, second I apologize as a representative of the industry.

More than likely, the Landman to which you refer in your story broke no law in signing your cousin (if there were no recorded instruments showing that your cousin was legally incapable of managing her own affairs). I am only saying this because you may find yourself wasting time and money perusing a costly civil action that may turn out to be a moot point (but remember, you can trust your lawyer to tell you that in advance foregoing the $400/hr he/she would receive in the pointless pursuit just as well as you can trust that same landman to not sign your cousin). That being said, it does not excuse the unethical actions of said landman. (Please note that I am not a lawyer and I am not giving you legal advice).

All I can say here is that I hope that you understand that the landman with whom you were dealing (once again, assuming that your story is completely factual) is a poor representative of the industry, and, in my experience, that kind of person makes up a generally small portion of the Oil and Gas Industry, and they are usually weeded out fairly quickly and "let go" before they can make too many of those mistakes.

One thing you need to realize is that most Oil and Gas companies would never want you to have such a negative experience (with the exception of possibly a few minor "fly-by-night" companies that don't care about business relationships). The companies are not stupid. They know you have a cell phone, and an email address, and a barber shop, and a cafe you regularly attend, etc., etc. You are going to tell your neighbors, your family members, you Aunt's cousin's sister's hairdresser... all about the way you were treated. This is a very negative thing. The companies are losing money every day they do not produce from a well. In other words, each day they have to spend researching title, locating mineral owners, contacting, contacting, contacting, leasing, etc. they are spending a ton of money.

That being said, if a company treats a mineral owner poorly, what do you think they can expect from the neighbors of that mineral owner when it comes time to try to lease their interests? Open arms or slammed doors? The Oil and Gas companies take huge risks to try to make money from the minerals they discover (if they discover any). Each time is a roll of the dice, and every minute counts. Therefore, if they are walking down the street of your neighborhood with a bloody sword in hand, and notches on their belt from each and every "victory" over your neighbors, they might as well just start taking money from their investors and burning it in a pile in front of them.

The companies have to make money, or you don't make money, and the companies also seize to be companies. They want you to be happy with them (generally speaking; see the above mentioned exception), and they want all of your friends, neighbors, family, etc to be happy with them as well. The more peace that exists between the mineral owners and the Oil and Gas Companies the better it is for them, and the better it is for you.

All of the above considered, know this: the landman is an independent contractor. This means that an Oil and Gas Company hires a "broker" to collect mineral interests for them in a certain area, the broker then turns and hires the independent landmen to do the "legwork". The Oil and Gas company sets certain guidelines for leasing, but these generally apply to royalty amounts allowed in the lease and other negotiation regulations, and are not specific on ethics. The company expects anyone representing them to act in a purely professional and ethical manner in all circumstances. The do not expect anyone to treat anyone else in the manner you were treated.

Landmen do not get "commissions". Period. In other words, there was no monetary gain to be made by your landman for "taking advantage" of your cousin. More than likely you were either in a situation where you had 1) an underperforming landman who was probably about to lose their job for not actually working and decided to do "whatever it takes" to prove otherwise, 2) an inexperienced "green" landman (who sounds like they were a used car salesman or a gym membership consultant before they got into this business), or 3) just a bad apple who will be weeded out sooner than later.

Again, I apologize for such a terrible experience for you and your family. I only ask that you don't apply that experience to your overall opinion of oil and gas companies and the way they operate.

You can and should contact the broker and possibly the company the broker has been contracted out by and voice a complaint. Trust me, as a person in the business, in my experience, I can tell you that a complaint about a landman reaches that landman almost immediately (usually the same day) and action is taken. There aren't many complaints that have come back on many of my co-contractors (none on myself), but even the complaints that are made up by a mineral owner who just thinks they can get more money if they say they were mistreated are investigated. So I can assure you that your complaint will be taken seriously.

Good luck to you and again, I am sorry for such a poor experience.

*This post is for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as legal advice or leading in any way. Please use this for informational purposes only.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next ›
• Page