I curious if anyone can shed some light on what to expect from a landman. I have 160 acres in Beckham county, leased, well is drilled, waiting for completion. I've phone him one time and had a few questions but he seemed annoyed, short and rushed of to another call after about a 2 minute conversation. Don't want to judge if it's not his job to inform owners. Help!
Kind Regards;
mike
Is your landman an employee of the operator or is he with an independent company which was hired to simply obtain leases on behalf of the oil company? If the latter, then he was paid to do a job (get your lease) and that was the end of his responsibility. His income is dependent on other jobs. If he is with the oil company, then he should answer your questions or tell you who else to contact in the company. If you post the well, operator and location, someone on the forum may be able to give you some information.
Dear Mr. Bennett,
What a wonderful question.
You should expect to be treated with courtesy and respect. With all other things being equal, one of the things that separates a landman from a super-landman is that the super-landman has great skills at building relationships. First, are you (as Tennis Daze asked) talking to the right person? The field guy has generally not much knowledge of the timing of completions.
Something is telling in your post. The title. "What to expect from my landman." By your landman, do you pay him? Likely not.
Did you set an appointment for your phone call with an agenda? Likely not. Most people do not understand at what high level of stress office landmen operate under. Especially now. Was he curt? Maybe his wife just yelled at him (and if his wife yelled at him, he probably deserved it). Maybe his boss told him to send the field staff home --- shut the project down. Maybe he had too much to drink at lunch. Maybe his job is in jeopardy. Maybe he is just a jerk. Lots of things.
Do you have a minor interest in a well and is it your first well and you are understandably excited? Perhaps you want to know when you will get your royalty money and he has no control over when the well will be completed. Perhaps you have a lot of questions and quite frankly he did not have the time at that particular moment to answer every question that you might come up with.
I personally almost never take an unexpected phone call. I am in demand and I have lots of work to do and in order to maximize efficiency, I let the caller leave a message and I will get back to them within 24 hours. If they do not leave a message, they do not get a call back. Many times I send an e-mail asking for an agenda for the call and a time can be set so that our time can be maximized and I will not (hopefully) be distracted with another call or some other emergency. If my wife or kids call, I always take their call to determine if I have a family emergency.
Perhaps a good question for you to ask of yourself is what do you expect from the landman?
Cordially,
Buddy CottenYou come back and say "a landman". I don't think that you believed that he ever really worked for you personally.
The answer to your question isn't really that complicated. If it was field or company, he should have been a big enough man to put his personal problems behind him, and either have been polite or courteous to you, and answered your questions, or in the alternative, called you back when he was less busy. If you had questions that he didn't know the answer to, he could have told you so, or referred you to the proper party who may have been able to answer them.
Bear in mind though, it isn't a one-way street. Mineral owners and land owners can be rude to landmen as well.
I doubt very seriously that he had too much to drink at lunch. That suggestion to you as a possibility is a far-out reach. The 80s are over, or the days of the 3 Martini lunch. That used to go on much more than it does now.
As for field landmen, that rarely happens. Drinking at lunch is generally frowned upon.
To sum it all up, he was less than professional in his manner.
I am sorry for your bad experience.
One final point. He may want to deal with you again someday, either related to this prospect, or something else. I am sure that you will remember his name.
Dave Quincy said:
You come back and say "a landman". I don't think that you believed that he ever really worked for you personally.
The answer to your question isn't really that complicated. If it was field or company, he should have been a big enough man to put his personal problems behind him, and either have been polite or courteous to you, and answered your questions, or in the alternative, called you back when he was less busy. If you had questions that he didn't know the answer to, he could have told you so, or referred you to the proper party who may have been able to answer them.
Bear in mind though, it isn't a one-way street. Mineral owners and land owners can be rude to landmen as well.
I doubt very seriously that he had too much to drink at lunch. That suggestion to you as a possibility is a far-out reach. The 80s are over, or the days of the 3 Martini lunch. That used to go on much more than it does now.
As for field landmen, that rarely happens. Drinking at lunch is generally frowned upon.
To sum it all up, he was less than professional in his manner.
I am sorry for your bad experience.
Excellent feedback Mr. Cotten and Mr. Quincy. Our family has owned this 160 acres for ever 100 years, when I look back at past dealings the landman in question has been involved as far back as the 70's. I have talked with him in the past, I do respect his time and rarely call. I this instance we received lease information in Oct 2014, this was exactly the second call placed to him in that time. I do have other holdings but admittedly I am excited to see what will come of this well. I do not know if he has simply signed us and collected his pay so his work is done. This is a great question and I'll address his role moving forward on my next conversation. I will admit that I hold myself and my dealing to a very high standard and it would be a very very rare day that one of my clients would be the brunt of my work or personal pressures. I have been a sales/marketing professional for over 35 years.....relationships and integritry cannot be bought, they're earned, when tarnished it can be challenging to earn that respect back. Can't thank you both enough for your thoughtful insights, it's people like you that help us all grow and learn.
Kind Regards;
Mike Bennett
Buddy Cotten said:
Dear Mr. Bennett,
What a wonderful question.
You should expect to be treated with courtesy and respect. With all other things being equal, one of the things that separates a landman from a super-landman is that the super-landman has great skills at building relationships. First, are you (as Tennis Daze asked) talking to the right person? The field guy has generally not much knowledge of the timing of completions.
Something is telling in your post. The title. "What to expect from my landman." By your landman, do you pay him? Likely not.
Did you set an appointment for your phone call with an agenda? Likely not. Most people do not understand at what high level of stress office landmen operate under. Especially now. Was he curt? Maybe his wife just yelled at him (and if his wife yelled at him, he probably deserved it). Maybe his boss told him to send the field staff home --- shut the project down. Maybe he had too much to drink at lunch. Maybe his job is in jeopardy. Maybe he is just a jerk. Lots of things.
Do you have a minor interest in a well and is it your first well and you are understandably excited? Perhaps you want to know when you will get your royalty money and he has no control over when the well will be completed. Perhaps you have a lot of questions and quite frankly he did not have the time at that particular moment to answer every question that you might come up with.
I personally almost never take an unexpected phone call. I am in demand and I have lots of work to do and in order to maximize efficiency, I let the caller leave a message and I will get back to them within 24 hours. If they do not leave a message, they do not get a call back. Many times I send an e-mail asking for an agenda for the call and a time can be set so that our time can be maximized and I will not (hopefully) be distracted with another call or some other emergency. If my wife or kids call, I always take their call to determine if I have a family emergency.
Perhaps a good question for you to ask of yourself is what do you expect from the landman?
Cordially,
I guess my family was lucky. Our lease is with EOG Resources, and the landman that I corresponded with was extra nice and helpful. I made sure I got his email address, and when I wanted to check on any progress, I would email him. Sometimes it took a few days for him to respond, but he always did. He kept us informed about when they would drill and after they drilled, he would email me with continuing info.
See if you can get an email address for your landman and maybe he would respond to that and you wouldn't have to talk to him.
Sandy
Landsman, just a gunslinger for the company's. Boohoo. To poor landsman may have had a bad day. The rights are yours! And they get paid to low ball you.
The landman may not have the answers you are seeking. Could your well be part of the growing "fracklog" of drilled but uncompleted wells? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-23/u-s-shale-fracklog-triples-as-drillers-keep-oil-out-of-market-i8u004xl