Land Management Systems: Accuracy

There’s no cutting corners when it comes to data accuracy in the upstream oil and gas industry. Successful organizations know that accurate data is the key to success.

How can a company increase the accuracy of their data and maintain it through all the conversions and different software platforms that a functioning company requires? At the end of the day, if you want to make accurate decisions, you need to start with accurate data. A land management system can help ensure and maintain that data accuracy.

Data Conversions

Everyone knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that starting your morning off right can have a positive effect on the rest of your day. It’s important to think about your data with the same mindset. When you first acquire your data is the best time to do clean-up and ensure the integrity of your information. Spending more effort up front will save you time in the long run, since you won’t need to hand check the accuracy of subsequent reports. Even more importantly, it gives you better valuation of your assets – which gives you more information to present when requesting additional funding or selling a prospect. In addition, you can charge a premium for having a clean data set that easily converts to a buyer’s land system.

Accuracy for Your System

Land management systems help track and maintain data for oil and gas organizations. By keeping the data neat and organized, it’s much easier to maintain accuracy. However, not all land management systems are identical, and they often handle data in different ways. In order to input your data efficiently, it’s important to understand the different systems and what information they prioritize.

Typically, organizations will either use a tract-based system or an agreement-based system. A tract-based system organizes the data with the tract being the basis for how the rest of the data is structured. Whereas an agreement-based system uses the lease, or other types of agreements, as the lowest common denominator.

To have the most accurate reports in a tract-based system, it helps to input as much ownership information as possible on the front end. This either comes from good title work when leasing a new area, or if you acquired the prospect, you can verify and add ownership information from the provided title opinions.

To get great reports from a lease-based system, you also need to input accurate ownership information that’s stored in different locations – a sub-level for each agreement. You’ll also need to ensure your agreement’s legal description is accurate to report by tract.

Strategic Decision-Making

By keeping data at the highest level of accuracy, an oil and gas organization can make informed and strategic decisions. Maintaining accurate data not only allows you to track the different aspects of your leases, it also allows you to see all your data accurately and determine the value of any given lease to your company.

A foundation of messy and mixed-up data requires endless organization. If you have bad data, you’re constantly scrambling when strategic insight is needed. In this scenario, energy is spent organizing data on the fly, instead of that time and effort being applied to effectively planning your next strategic move. Neat and organized data that’s laid out in a table or database is easy to understand and work with. Instead of feeling overwhelmed with the amount of information your organization has to process, the information can be used to your advantage. When you have reliable and accurate data, you can be much more confident in your decisions and the direction you want to take your organization.

About The Author
A graduate of U.S.L. in Lafayette, LA with a Petroleum Land Management degree, Richard has over 35 years of experience as a practicing Landman. As co-founder and Vice-President of iLandMan, he oversees all company operations for its Land and Lease Acquisition and Management software application; some areas under his management are business continuity, implementation, marketing, database, staff and record management. Richard is the recipient of the 2008 AAPL Best Director’s Communication Award and currently serves on the AAPL Board of Directors as the Director from the AAPL Local- Lafayette LA Association.