For Beginning Landmen

Welcome to the petroleum landman business! If you are an intelligent, confident, educated, self-reliant, self-sufficient, self-starter with strong ethics and good people skills, who enjoys being intellectually challenged, then you may have come to the right place. Oh… Hopefully, you have brought your computer skills with you as well. You are going to need them. Believe me… You have enough to learn about being a petroleum landman without having to learn how to use a  computer at the same time. 

In order to be good at this profession, you are going to have to develop a strong understanding of business law as it relates to contracts and titles. You need to become familiar with oil and gas leases and understand the impact and the importance of the various clauses within those leases. You must learn, at a very early stage, how to evaluate the various documents, such as warranty deeds, quitclaim deeds, mineral deeds, royalty deeds, deeds of trust, mortgages, liens, judgments, probates, and leases that affect the title to a property. And you must achieve an understanding of how the surface, minerals, royalty, and the executive rights can all become severed from the fee simple title. In order to perform your duties, you are going to have to understand the difference between separate and community property and how a married person might own property that is not a part of his or her community estate. You will learn the significance of a property owner dying either testate or intestate. You will see properties that are owned by people with life estates, and you must understand the importance of this distinction so that you can also identify the owners of the remainder interest. 

I graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1976, with a BBA and a  major in Petroleum Land Management. Even though I have a PLM degree, I  didn’t come out of college with an understanding of how to research or examine land titles. As most landmen do, I learned by doing the work under the supervision of someone who could guide me through it. Also, in my case, I started out as an “in-house” landman. Accordingly, I didn’t actually perform a lot of courthouse research during the first few years of working as a petroleum landman. Also, when it comes to title matters, there is one huge benefit to being an in-house landman. And that is the in-house landmen are the ones who supervise the formal title examination process that begins with the preparation of a sovereignty runsheet and ends with a title opinion by an attorney. And we are the ones who have to take those title opinions and decide what to do about the title requirements within them. Believe me, reading hundreds of title opinions rendered by scores of different attorneys, and being the person ultimately responsible for curing those title requirements in advance of spending a million dollars or more to drill a well that might prove up many millions of dollars of oil and gas reserves, gives a  person a great background in title. Sure… There are courses you can take, and there are books you can read… But you need to understand right up front there is no way to achieve this knowledge and understanding that doesn’t involve reasoning it out for yourself. If you are lucky,  then you will have a skilled and experienced person or persons you can ask for help and guidance. But even then, you should try to guard against asking questions before trying to reason the situation out for yourself. In the beginning, you are going to have to spend a lot of time reading documents very carefully in order to properly understand their importance. Later on, as you gain experience, you will be able to streamline your process, skipping over the superfluous, un-important verbiage, and going straight to the parts of the documents that impact your title. For instance, once you have read and understood various pooling clauses in an oil and gas lease, then you know that unless you are tasked with forming a unit, these clauses have little impact on what you are doing as a title examiner. However, if you are negotiating and preparing oil and gas leases, then you better understand these pooling clauses very well indeed. 

 If you are tasked with negotiating an oil and gas lease and you don’t understand these terms and provisions, then the landowner’s attorney is going to have an absolute field day with you. I think the term “skin you alive” might be appropriate here.  

 You need to develop and perfect your negotiating skills. And, you  need to figure out how to relate to and interact with every type of person you can imagine… Because whoever owns the land you are leasing is the person you must make a deal with. Negotiating is an art. There are courses you can take and there are books you can read on the subject of  negotiating. I will tell you that basically, in order to be a good negotiator, you need to know what you want, and also understand as much  as possible what the other person wants out of the negotiation. Whenever  possible, always get something when your give something. The biggest part of both negotiating and people skills come with the confidence of  knowing your business well.

Also, it should be  noted here, that another term for landman is “lease broker”. This term  refers to the reality that a landman is there as a middle-man. He or she is paid by the client to acquire the lease. This means his task is to  broker a deal between the landowner and the client. The obligation to  the client is to make the best deal he can with the landowner. If the  original terms are not accepted, then the landman’s task becomes to  broker the best deal for the client that he can. Often, the client can be very disappointed with this “best deal possible”… Good negotiating  skills can sometimes only go so far.

As stated above, bring your computer skills with you when you begin your landman training. It’s just too much to ask that you learn how to use a computer at the same time you have to learn title and leasing, and everything else a good landman must know and understand. I’m sure there are exceptions, but personally, I would not take anyone on as a landman trainee that did not already have solid computer skills. In regard to the specific computer skills, you will need… Of course, you will need to be proficient in Word and Excel, or other comparable word processing and spreadsheet programs. If you use other programs, you may find you are forced to begin using the Microsoft programs because it is so important to be able to share files with colleagues. Proficiency in using a database program such as Microsoft Access may come in handy as well. Adobe Acrobat Pro is widely used by landmen. I already told you that I graduated from OU in 1976, so I am not dating myself further when I tell you I remember being completely amazed when fax machines came out. Although being able to send or receive a fax is still necessary occasionally, these days we much prefer to scan documents and email them as PDFs. We also utilize Adobe Acrobat Pro or other, similar programs when working on scanned plats for title reports. Many land crews share info on the cloud, and you will need to understand how this is accomplished as well. If you are reading this, then you probably have at least some rudimentary computer skills. After all, you had to surf the Web to get here. 

Do you already know how to compose business letters and reports? Are you capable of drafting a contract or agreement in order to verify a verbal agreement? Being able to write well is a big plus. If you need to, you can work to improve in this area as you go along with your career as a landman. I have done a great deal of writing, and from my experience, if you want to write well, there are two things you need to understand. First… Say things in the simplest manner possible. And Second… A first draft is almost never a finished draft. Always work on your piece of writing until you can’t find anything else that needs improving. 

Typing skills are another matter. In the beginning, I had secretaries and didn’t have to type. These days you will, without a doubt, need to be able to type reasonably well in order to be a good landman. If your typing skills are lacking, you can work on them as you go. There are some really good typing exercises available for free on the Internet.

 Make the following realization early in your career…. Getting the work done quickly is not as important as getting the work done correctly. Don’t ever rush through a job thinking the client will be impressed with  how quickly you can get it done, and end up turning in sloppy work as a result. Have pride in your work. Be able to defend your conclusions. Always take the time to check your work for mistakes and errors. It is much harder to fix a lease or other document or report once it is signed and recorded than it is to get it right the first time. 

Proofread… proofread… proofread. 

 Everyone makes mistakes… Including me. And also, including you. Don’t be the person that never admits to making mistakes. Be quick to recognize your mistakes and learn from them. Always be focused on the truth. And know  that the truth is often a moving target.