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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on November 23, 2018 at 6:51

Interestingly, there is no formal announcement by Southwestern Energy regarding their divestment of their Brown Dense assets although the change of operator for the wells was July 12, 2018.  Velandera appears to not have existed prior to its registration in Texas on January 22, 2018.  Velandera registered with the LA SOS on May 23, 2018.  Velandera Energy Partners has a professional appearing website but lacks much detail or depth.  I think it's a pretty safe bet that the Brown Dense assets acquired from Southwestern constitute the company's entire operated assets.  The website claims that the company is the #1 Exploration company in North Louisiana which is a patently absurd statement to make and does not provide a good impression for anyone who knows the facts of north LA E&P.  Hopefully more information will be available in the future.  In the meantime I suggest that Velandera's statements been taken with a healthy dose of skepticism and that GHS members with interests in the Brown Dense units and surrounding region remain cautious as to any contact they may receive from the company.

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Permalink Reply by Spring Branch,mineral owner on November 23, 2018 at 9:18

I agree. The largest exploration and production company in North Louisiana claim is a joke, based on what?

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Permalink Reply by Rock Man on November 25, 2018 at 13:38

Following up on Skip's comments on Verlandera's website. Interesting team - and a bit strange in some ways. Field and production ops manager is ex-Southwestern. One could think that doing a deal on the Brown Dense Smackover may have been a "favor" for a valued SW manager going out the door.

Company "head" has no apparent O&G experience - banking only. The only technical person on their website (Peter Oyewole - Linked In profile below). Is ex BP and Bass - appears to be expert in artificial lift and is actually the President of Proline (which is listed as a "partner" with Verlandera)..

Proline has other properties as per their website (e.g. EOG wells in San Patricio Co).

I think they screwed up their website as to the #1 in N Louisiana comment - bet they meant that to be #1 in Smackover Brown Dense (which is a comment farther down in the website Home page). It will be interesting to see what they do in this play as to "new work".

Peter%20Oyewole.pdf

https://velandera.net/team

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Permalink Reply by Ben Barnhill on November 28, 2018 at 7:33

I am assuming that Southwest's sale of its interests in the Brown Dense included all their lease holdings in Union Parish.  Is it unusual that there was no notification by SW of this transaction to the mineral/land owners?

It just seems odd that the first I hear of this is the post by "Skip" here.

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Permalink Reply by Rock Man on November 28, 2018 at 7:37

My personal experiences as to "asset sales" communication range from seller contacting owners to buyers contacting owners to no contact all.

My gut is telling me that you will eventually get a letter from Velandera about the change on ownership

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Permalink Reply by Ben Barnhill on November 28, 2018 at 7:52

It will be interesting to see if I receive any sort of notice. However, I am encouraged to see this activity. We had pretty much become resolved that we will never see any money from the Brown Dense. Although we were surprised that SW renewed the lease back in 2016. We are marginally optimistic, but still don't exactly have our hopes up much.

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on November 28, 2018 at 8:27

In my experience, operating companies taking control of producing minerals will not contact lessors until they are ready to assume royalty payments.  Lessors in producing units should get a royalty check and statement with a cover letter.  If you hang out on GHS regularly, you may hear a lot of things first from "Skip".  :-)

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