Optima Land Services is a one-stop brokerage with the ability to complete any land project. We understand the complexities facing in-house landmen and we provide a product and expertise that makes their job easier. Our industry-leading land services include Leasing & Acquisitions, Surface & Right-of-Way, Due Diligence, Title Curative and dealing with a multitude of Regulatory Issues. In addition to these services, we have also created our own land system where we can manage all of your files, help monitor drilling/leasing/payment obligations, prepare contracts/PSAs, and much more. We can customize any project to fit our clients’ needs.
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TITLE RESEARCH & REPORTING
Thorough title research, reporting, and curing defects of title are at the core of our many years of collective experience and expertise. Each and every member of the Optima Land team is required to be a member of the AAPL, so we stay current on continuing education and the changing demands of our industry. Our landmen stay current on the rapidly evolving case law that governs our industry.
We believe that timely, thorough, and accurate title is the backbone of every oil and gas acquisition and divestiture, so we ensure that we are always on the cutting edge of how to most accurately research and report title ownership. Beyond that, our reporting format is easy to read and navigate. This allows our clients to absorb our reports quickly and efficiently. Optima shares an office with other oil and gas attorneys and has strong relationships with a wide network of attorneys, which lets us get quick feedback on any complex, title-related question. We also use leading software, including Enverus, ShareFile, Courthouse Direct and our own proprietary systems to provide the most comprehensive, efficient, and detailed title reports possible. Our experience in all forms of title research, use of technology, having our own in-house title attorneys, and good old-fashioned courthouse research has enabled us to provide industry-leading title research and reporting, allowing the in-house landman to be secure and confident with the decisions they make.
Presidio County Courthouse: Online records have come a long way, but our landmen still spend time at the courthouse indexing names, pulling documents and building relationships with county clerks.
LEASING & ACQUISITION
Optima’s experienced leasing team works on a variety of leasing projects and needs. We emphasize clear and concise communication with our clients throughout the acquisition process. We negotiate in a tactful and professional manner which improves the negotiation process. This allows us to build rapport and maintain mutually beneficial relationships between clients and lessors.
Our leasing team has negotiated and handled every form of leasing and acquisition in the oil and gas sector. From grass roots leasing projects to negotiating farm ins, term assignments, deep rights leasing, acreage trades, leasehold purchases, and everything in between. Optima’s accountants and lease analysts have developed a highly efficient and accurate lease processing department that is able to put together accurate Lease Purchase Reports and Lease Packet folders that catalog the hard copies and store them digitally on the cloud through the Sharefile software. We also put together Lease Obligation, Maintenance, and Pugh reports to assist our client’s maintenance of their material contracts, and determine how much acreage has been held by production at specific depths or formations.
Our highly experienced landmen and attorneys have a deep understanding of current market conditions of the oil and gas industry. Because of this, we are able to assist the in-house landman with redlining complex oil and gas lease forms, Purchase and Sale Agreements, Term Assignments, and Farm Ins as well as offer our expertise on market bonus, royalty, contract and lease provisions to ensure our clients' interests are always protected and optimized.
SURFACE & RIGHT-OF-WAY
Drill site and surface assessments, easements and right-of-way can at times be a daunting challenge. At Optima, we integrate all surface elements into our client’s drilling programs, pipeline projects, and surface acquisitions. All of our surface landmen are well versed with the ever changing and demanding surface environment the oil and gas industry is currently in. We have handled 200-mile pipeline projects, surface use and damage negotiations, right of way and easement purchase for operations, surface purchase acquisitions and much more. We are partnered with a licensed, professional surveyor who is also in our office. This allows us to quickly and efficiently negotiate and obtain ROWs/SUAs/Easements and generate surveys since our collective team is communicating and working in concert with each other. We have put together a one-stop shop for our clients’ surface needs.
DUE DILIGENCE
Due Diligence is a highly specialized and complex process making it one of the most valuable services we provide our clients. We believe that a great deal of the value created in any acquisition is not when it’s sold, but when it is purchased. Due diligence services have been in high demand since the inception of Optima. Because of that, we’ve been able to put together a best in market team that solely works on due diligence projects. We have a deep understanding of the information needed to prepare a proper pre-buy Due Diligence examination. We identify actual, as well as potential, record title defects, production issues, permitting discrepancies, tax issues, lessors not leased in their proper capacity, and dozens of other potential issues on the acquisitions of leasehold, leasehold trades, wellbore, surface, mineral, non-participating royalty, and overriding royalty.
We also help advise our clients in the negotiations of the Purchase & Sale Agreements, defect reports, post close settlement reports, creation of exhibits and much more. We have worked all forms of due diligence, from billion-dollar acquisitions to small mineral purchases, with almost all of them under tight and demanding time constraints. Over time we have developed and refined a due diligence process that is able to quickly research, analyze and report title defects to our clients that is both time efficient and transparent. It helps our clients communicate title conflicts and defects, and resolve and cure them in an acceptable manner.
Optima also prepares clients for divestitures by building digital data rooms, negotiating Purchase and Sale Agreements, curing title defects and guiding them through closing.
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CURATIVE
Our curative team has an extensive understanding of all the complexities that arise in title research. They use a wide range of resources to resolve complex curative issues and deliver them to our clients on time. Our curative department consists of attorneys and highly experienced landmen who work with all facets of our team, including title research and reporting, leasing, due diligence, and surface. We can handle all of our client’s production revenue related issues such as helping set up revenue decks, NPRI ratifications, drafting curative related documents, and mineral or royalty owner contact and relations.
REGULATORY ISSUES
Our landmen, attorneys and surveyors have years of experience in helping our clients permit oil, salt water disposal and commercial water wells in addition to dealing with Rule 37 & 38 spacing issues. We are also well versed on setting up pooled units, production sharing agreements, allocation wells and converting allocation wells to production sharing wells to minimize risk and increase value of divestitures. Regulatory issues are constantly changing. We’ve had the privilege to work with some of the best regulatory attorneys in the State of Texas to ensure our regulatory guidance is always current.