Adrian Hedden – Carlsbad Current-Argus – A new database of oil and gas land information from Osebergin the Permian Basin could help companies sort through the numerous land management agencies of New Mexico public land.
Oseberg, an Oklahoma-based upstream oil and gas data company published the information Dec. 2, including data from Eddy, Lea, Chaves and Roosevelt counties. This comes just two years after they released their enhanced data set on the Texas side of the Permian Basin.
The database included records from the federal Bureau of Land Management, New Mexico State Land Office and the State’s Oil Conservation Division.
“This highly valuable data from the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division (OCD) is extremely difficult to access, and even harder to extract,” read a statement from Oseberg.
Deeds, leases, assignments, assessments and spacing and pooling numbers were included in the records.
Records showed New Mexico has 5,400 square miles of federal land, along with 3,800 miles of State-owned land and 3,600 square miles of fee mineral acreage.
The report also included 80,000 land lease records from the county clerks in the four southeast New Mexico counties, and 15,000 state and federal leases across the state.
More than 120,000 historic and actively-producing oil and gas wells were also included in the data, along with 5,000 fracking reports.
“Each ownership type presents its own regulatory and contractual challenges that can be difficult to keep up with, especially if you want/need to drill across a ‘mixed-ownership’ position,” read a statement from Oseberg.
“Understanding the nuances of the various requirements in this mixed environment is critical to operate in this state, and to benefit from the cornucopia of ancillary information that is available, but not readily accessible, from these regulatory filings.”
Houston-based Mountain Lion Oil partnered with Oseberg on the study, and President Griffin Haby said the project will help companies seeking to operate in New Mexico get a better understanding for what land is available in developing operations.
“In a scarce public data environment, Oseberg is king in New Mexico,” he said. “They allowed us to analyze current and future production in seconds versus hours. Very thankful we were included in the Beta testing and had a chance to get a jump on competition in the royalty space.”
Oseberg Product Manager Cris Beyers said the dataset could help operators find mineral owners and determine where best to operate in the Permian, by putting all of the area’s government land data in one location.
“This new dataset is already helping our clients find mineral owners, map pools by formation, navigate through federal leases and communitizations and determine working interest and overriding royalties.” Beyers said.
“It’s a treasure trove of data that has been difficult to find all in one place in the past.”
Director of Product Rich Herrmann said the project will help simplify what can be difficult information to understand, while also making it more accessible to users.
“It’s not just about putting well locations and lease outlines on a map,” he said. “We are extracting rich information from unstructured data sources, making previously unsearchable data searchable and therefore useful. It’s a game changer.”
