This week on Mining Money, Brandon Davis and Imran Khan of Swan Energy talk about the value of a Landman in oil and gas. From court house deep dives to geology to knowing the right people at the right time are discussed.
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Jason Spiess: Thank you very much for joining the program here today. Mining Money, the weekly segment with Brandon Davis and Imran Khan of Swan Energy experts out there skin in the game investments across Shale Play USA as well as other industries too. Gold, transportation, etc. Today I wanted to bring you two in to talk a little bit about the value and importance of a landman, landwoman, landperson, in the oil and gas industry. It’s the one kind of jack of all trades, at least from my perspective, somebody who can really make deals happen and kind of are the silent, uh, silent deal makers out there. So i just wanted to set that table in that way and then kind of hand the baton off a little bit to you guys. First of all, hello, how are you before we get into the meat and potatoes part of it. You guys doing okay today?
Imran Khan: Doing well, thank you for asking. How are you?
Jason Spiess: I’m doing good. You know how it is you get in the thick of things and sometimes you get so focused on work, you forget to take a step back and just see how people are doing in today’s day and age. So I thought I’d do that quick and just see how things are going before we get into the kind of the value of a landman, a landwoman, a landperson. Brandon how are you doing over there?
Brandon Davis: The reality is Jason nobody gives a damn how we are and if they do I’m concerned, so I appreciate you asking all the formalities. But we’re doing well. It’s just nobody cares.
Jason Spiess: Well let’s get to Mining Money then. Let’s get to what people care about, making money, getting deals done and figuring out how the heck to navigate through the times of uncertainty. I was at a dinner party the other day and people are asking me all kinds of questions because i was in the oil and gas business according to them and the oil and gas business is always full of uncertain times you know so people are starting to look at the industry folk as people to help navigate through some of these different times and that got me thinking about landmen and last week during our mining money segment you brought up uh working with different landmen from time to time depending on how many different deals you have going and it fluctuates this and that. And so I made a little note of that as well as the engineers of course but that’s that’s a pretty obvious one the reason for a petroleum engineer and some of the geologists and that sort of thing, but I don’t think a lot of people understand the value behind a land man so uh talk to me a little bit about that area of how they operate and intertwine and intermingle with your business if you wouldn’t mind.
Brandon Davis: Well first of all a landman could be a man or a woman, so there is no land woman. It’s a landman. I have a landman that works for me full-time who is a woman. She is amazing at her job and does everything probably more perfect than it needs to be which is kind of how you want it. But the truth be told the landman and that whole group of individuals drive this business really and I hate admitting that. But it’s the truth. They’re important. They’re crucial to it, and the work that they do and the things that they’re able to put together are what create opportunities to drill oil and gas wells. Of course it all starts with geology and engineering and mostly geology in the beginning, but once you identify an area and go to work, you have to be able to get the leases put together. And then once you get leases put together, especially these days, you have to be able to get pipelines put in and easements and this is a lot of ongoing work and these guys and gals do it and do it well. And I feel bad because there are probably a lot of them right now that don’t have any work to do and without jobs. That’s unfortunate, but the fortunate thing for them is when things go back the other way there will be more opportunities than there are landmen and that again will change the game. So we’ll be moving in the right direction for sure at that point.
Jason Spiess: The one thing that always stood out about the land man to me was they were kind of of the hustler mindset in terms i don’t mean that a negative way I mean that and just they’re they’re always trying to move deals along trying to get things moving along looking for things to stay busy and that’s what i wanted i was wondering about this time right now because I know last year a lot of them were starting to kind of either lose work or were starting to look for additional work and then of course with with the COVID Shutdown that just sent another ripple through. My guess is right now though some landmen are probably out there you know beating the streets twice as hard shaking a few sticks that sort of thing, looking for some deals. Trying to get things going. Imran there’s got to be some value of networking and just getting the conversation and that sort of thing going because these landmen they kind of Know a lot of the nooks and crannies of these different counties and cities and communities don’t they?
Imran Khan: I think that’s really the big benefit of landmen. You know in general they’ve got knowledge of the area that they’ve been doing all their work in and sometimes that’s it’s over you know several counties. It could be over a state depending on the size that’s out there, obviously in Texas. Texas is one of those great big states that has such a vast different sets of reservoirs and sets of different counties that you might be going through multiple different landmen to be able to find deals. Right now we’ve got several that are out there that are looking for deals for us. And you know to your point I’ve been seeing them dropping by the office more often than they did several months ago so they’re definitely coming by and and they’re you know bringing up a lot of the networks that they provide with respect to the different deals that are out there the different potential. Yeah it’s kind of like uh what they do is a lot of have you ever played tetris it’s like that right like getting the getting each one of those lines lined up the proper way without a gap I mean that’s kind of like the the way that they’re getting the the people from the company the people who own the land the you know the the actual reservoir that’s that’s in place that might be owned by 15 different people um so it’s it’s a lot of different moving parts and you know they put all that together in a way that um you know it kind of is served in a in a platter in a sense. So that’s kind of what they do in a new deals market at least to be able to get deals put forward and and uh and and actually getting the purchasers to purchase the leases and the land.
Jason Spiess: That’s interesting. Starting to stop by and get the infectious attitude going to get kind of momentum and get some investments going uh that sort of thing that’s that’s interesting because the the hustling thing I was talking about was you know where basically they can a lot of times they have that personality where they can turn a deal out of thin air you know make something happen it’s because they do they have their fingers in a lot of different areas it reminds me a lot of like like like a realtor or something along those lines where they do a lot of a lot of little parts to everything and they know a lot of different people and that’s their job and it’s a really important part and I started thinking more about how there are different landmen too aren’t there because you mentioned you’ve got one in house and i know that there are independent contractors out there and then aren’t there even like field land people too so there’s even a little bit of a niche within a niche there?
Brandon Davis: It’s pretty deep and the whole depending on who you are and where you’re working the courthouses in most counties when things are busy are full of landmen or junior landmen taking images to do chain titles to determine who owns minerals so that companies can make offers and buy them. Oh I’ve had a I’ve had a lot of bad geologists over the years. I don’t know if I know a good one to be honest with you. Nothing against geologists, it’s a hard thing to do and they’re never right.
Jason Spiess: Hey now, don’t apologize for your experiences in life. I mean that’s just the way it is.
Brandon Davis: They’re never right and always wrong right, and that’s just the way it is. And everybody bets on them because if they’re right it works and usually if they’re wrong it’s sometimes they’re wrong in the right way, so it goes both ways. It’s a lot. You know it’s definitely the opposite of rocket science which is very particular and specific. So if you’re off by point zero one percent the rocket blows up. Geologists don’t have to worry about that. I’ve known a lot of good engineers, I’ve known a lot of bad engineers, and it’s a pretty broad field. But when it comes to landman, I’ve never met a bad one. There’s obviously people who do things that aren’t right, but at the end of the day most landmen know what they’re doing, know how to do it, and go get the work done. The day rate, you know, it’s one of those things that I hate paying but when we need it, it’s worth every penny we spend on it. So it’s, just um, you know, I think the people in that part of our industry know that when things are like they are right now there’s not going to be any work and if there is it’s it’s sparse. But when things go the other way there literally is more work than there are people to do it, and that’s when they make all their money. And I actually hired a landman that has been laid off for a few months to help us raise money. And he’s tremendously successful from the land perspective but everything that he was doing just went away so he’s trying to find a way to make it work between now and the time he can get back to doing what he knows how to do very very well. And so that’s probably, but he also mentioned in the interview when we were talking and I’m not telling you any more information than this but he said that uh you know he knows in oil Business it’s it’s obvious that you’re going to have ups and you’re going to have downs and when the downturns happen you got to save enough money from the up upside to make it through and um that’s the crucial part of anybody in any part of any business really when you get down to it is having reserves and having the ability to make it through the hard times and um that’s a tough that’s a tough position to be in right now in this industry anybody that’s out there in the land made an unemployed I feel for him because it’s it’s going to be a little bit before things kick back off I think.
Full transcript coming soon.
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