Bluetick Inc. Spells Out Benefits of Using Land Management Systems
Greensboro, NC (PRWEB) June 10, 2015 -- Spreadsheets, mappers or a documentation management system are just a few ways that people use to manage their land activities. This arrangement can be flawed though, and can lose track of expiring leases and finances. Take a step back, and imagine how efficient a land team could be if given the right land management system. Bluetick Inc. of Greensboro, N.C. can help your business establish the perfect system.
Land management systems (LMS) are used by a variety of companies to manage their assets. Some of the companies that utilize land systems are E&P, mining and pipeline companies, law firms and royalty partnerships. These systems maintain an electronic collection of leases, company-owned fee lands, rights-of-way, unit designations, and any other type of agreement that may need to be tracked. These systems not only allow easy record keeping and reporting, but also provide help in managing those properties. It is time to evaluate the purchase or license of a proper land system. Continuing to manage land activities manually with spreadsheets is a big gamble.
The implementation of a land system will provide a boost in productivity in many areas, said Ken Sigmon of Bluetick Inc.
“The most obvious way is having a database of all leases that are acquired, and having the ability to organize those leases in a variety of ways,” Sigmon said. “Most systems have a scheme for grouping leases by prospect, project area, organizational ownership, and tract. “Another seemingly obvious thing that a proper land system can do is track lease provisions and generate reports on those provisions as necessary. For example, if a block of 100 leases are being sold, the lease analyst could quickly build a report to list all leases which had provisions requiring notice or consent for assignment.”
Another great use of land systems is to generate a calendar of upcoming lease obligations, he said.
“It’s powerful to be able to, at a glance, determine if primary terms are ending, Pugh clauses are activating, or lease rental payments are coming due,” he said. “While there are many ways to manually track these items, an automatically generated e-calendar is an excellent solution. In fact, some systems provide an e-calendar module that can send automated emails.”
According to Sigmon, once a company makes the decision to begin evaluating land management systems, it is the beginning of a process that could take a few weeks to six months or longer. This evaluation time frame is largely dependent on the sales, design, implementation and testing processes that are required by the system provider and their client. While many of the less expensive land management systems offer an out-of-the-box package that is appropriate for use by most oil and gas companies, some companies have more complex needs. In this case an enterprise or on-site land management system, such as Bluetick, may be required to meet the company requirements.
When evaluating a LMS a very important decision is choosing a lease-based or tract-based system. The major difference between the two primarily comes down to the architecture of the database or the structure of how the data is stored. Modern databases are referred to as relational databases because they allow data in different tables to “relate” to each other through some identifier and thus allow queries of the data through several tables at a time. Agreement-based systems typically have their architecture designed to wrap everything around the agreement or lease. Lease data is stored in a table and other data can be joined to that table through the lease number or ID. Typically, with this type of system, a user can look at a lease and see its tracts but cannot look at a tract and see its leases.
Tract-based systems are designed so that all data stored has a tie in some way back to a tract. Tracts are stored in a table, owners in another, leases in another and so on. This allows the user to look at a lease and see its tracts, look at a tract and see its leases, or even look at an owner and see its tracts or leases. The structured form of data in a tract-based system is a natural fit and lends itself easily to growth, Sigmon said.
Tracts exist and they have owners with interest. That basic foundation allows for practically any other feature to be added and attached to it either at the tract, owner or ownership level. Not only is the architecture easier to implement but operations and reports also run faster considering querying mounds of redundant data are not left. Any system can store a mass of data, but it takes a properly designed one to provide accurate information in a timely fashion.
Suppose a unit contains some tracts that are leased and some that are not. With a lease-based system, only those leases within the unit would be seen. Also, a Working Interest or Over-Ride Royalty Interest to the leases and unleased tracts would not be possible in a lease-based system. With a tract-based system, this is not only possible, but can be expanded even further to include Right-of-Ways on those tracts, wells in those units, title transfers of the ownership of those tracts, and so on.
Could a company be too small to use a LMS? E&P operators and land brokers are still using spreadsheets to manage data.
“You are doing your company an injustice,” Sigmon said. “Spreadsheets are not databases. Databases allow you to get information from data and without a proper land system, your company’s efficiency will suffer. You will also be susceptible to missing lease expirations; as well as, missing rental payments which we know can be a costly experience.”
The right LMS will pay for itself by improving efficiency and accuracy and assisting users by automatically notifying personnel of upcoming dates of interest. Bluetick has a land solution regardless of company size. Their client managers get answers to questions quicker than ever before and often have clients tell them, “I can’t believe we ever operated any other way.”
Improve land management activities with a land management system software solution today. Contact Bluetick Inc. for the most innovative and intuitive tract-based LMS that is integrated with premier map services from Esri ArcGIS®.
About the Company:
Bluetick Inc. provides innovative solutions to the upstream oil and gas marketplace. Bluetick’s Remote Monitoring and Control (RMC) system helps operators optimize oil and gas production, enhance environmental compliance and safety, and increase workforce performance. Bluetick’s Land Management System (LMS) software automates the entire lifecycle of permit, lease, and ROW acquisition projects, including land records administration and complete GIS mapping interface. For more information about Bluetick Inc., please visit their website at http://www.bluetickinc.com.
Ken Sigmon, Bluetick Inc, http://www.bluetickinc.com, 336-294-4102, [email protected]
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