Seismic Survey Payment

recently got a letter from a company called TGS wanting to do seismic surveys on our leased property. Anyone had experience with this and any pros/cons? They offered us $5 per acre which sounded really low but I have no idea. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by TAJ on March 17, 2015 at 2:04am

Can a private citizen purchase a seismic line at a reduced rate from a seismic company

Permalink Reply by Craig Cooper on March 17, 2015 at 3:33am

Thomas,

It depends on whether the seismic data is owned by an O&G company or group of companies (often referred to as 'proprietary data') or whether the data is owned by the seismic acquisition company (i.e. is part of their 'library'; often referred to as 'spec' data). 

If the data is proprietary, you'll have to contact the owner(s). Chances are that they won't sell it to you but it doesn't hurt to try.

If the data is spec, then contact the acquisition company. Chances are they will sell it to you but probably not at a reduced rate.

Keep in mind that a 'seismic line' can be a variety of things; e.g. a series of individual records, a 'stacked' section, a 'migrated' section (displayed in time), a 'migrated' section (displayed in depth), an 'acoustic impedance' section, et al. So you'll need to find out what is available/exists and then be specific about what you want and whether you want the digital version of the data or a paper display, etc.

The digital data will be in one of a few standard industry formats so you'll need to have a computer that has an app or program that can read the formatted data.

Permalink Reply by TAJ on March 17, 2015 at 2:22pm

Thanks for your reply and I do actually understand a little bit of seismic stuff based on some past "schooling".  The reduced rate to an individual is what I really was curious about.  Don't know if Dawson or another company ran it but know Columbia gas drilled a horizontal into the Trenton/black river and hit an open hole big well. Over the years, I have acquired a large tract of mineral rights all around this area. Figure they drilled into a faulted zone that's been "vugged out" and just trying to figure the trend beneath the adjoining areas. If, down the road, I could acquire the data and what was actually ran would it be hard to get an experienced "person" to help with the interpretation of the data?  

Permalink Reply by Craig Cooper on March 18, 2015 at 2:00am

Thomas,

It shouldn't be difficult to find a good interpreter to help out. Local professional societies are a good place to start as is LinkedIn. Good luck.

It would be interesting to have a look at the G&G data around the Columbia Gas Trenton/Black River well. There are so many things that can be done to coax the geology out of good quality 3D seismic data today. I'll have to admit that I miss that part of the business. 

Good luck & all the best.

Permalink Reply by Booger on March 13, 2015 at 7:12am

they offered me $10 after I told them no to $5.........I told them $100 or no..........they did the neighbors and drove their little drilling rigs all over the woods.....even crushed some old fences crossing onto my property in some places by 500 feet..........they don't seem to know where property lines are........and of course they did this work in the middle of the rut last fall ........so I'm glad I told them no..........that was followed by helicopters dropping sensors here and there and more dudes coming out to bury them.

not a big deal if you don't mind people and equipment all over your place for months......

Permalink Reply by bessieblues on March 13, 2015 at 9:42am
Booger, we had the same problems of trespassing after we told them(Global)no to their $10 per acre offer. They know where the property boundaries are ,as good as we do, however they simply chose the path of least resistance to move their drilling buggies around at our expense. Complete and utter disregard for private property!
Permalink Reply by Art Tripp on March 13, 2015 at 10:41am

I received a courtesy call from TGS this afternoon saying that they would be placing sensors on the property in 7 - 10 days and we would likely see some activity (103 acres in Center Twp., Guernsey County).  The sensors may be in place for a couple weeks, depending on the weather conditions and when they can complete their activities.

They have been to the property several times, first placing blue and white ribbons (likely for access marking) and later with pink and orange ribbons (likely for activity spots).  Attached are a couple pictures, one of the hand-carried device they used when marking the activity spots, and a second picture while they were working in the meadow.

Given that we have a small lake on our property, we spoke with TGS prior to signing an agreement (as well as with ODNR and the local extension service) and placed a stipulation in regard to placement of any seismic charges and distance to the water to prevent harm to the fish and lake.  TGS has been quite friendly and informative in all contact we have had with them and were quite willing to work with all concerns and stipulations we presented in regard to activities around the water.

We received $5.00 per acre for the area in Guernsey where they are working.  We also have property in Harrison and Carroll Counties (smaller parcels in a couple villages) and received a request to have our properties there included in the survey.  They consist of several lots in each town (under an acre each) and they didn't offer any payment (they weren't doing any surface activities on the properties) and we didn't ask or bother seeing about any given the size and no activity actually taking place on the lots.

Thus far I have no complaints and would be willing to work with them again.

 

Permalink Reply by Craig Cooper on March 13, 2015 at 11:07am

Art, nice pictures. Thanks. The hand-carried equipment is used to survey in the precise location of seismic source and detector points associated with the upcoming 3D survey.

Permalink Reply by countrygirl on March 15, 2015 at 10:23am

We also signed for the seismic at $5.00 an acre...Madison Township Guernsey County, Ohio...they came and were very nice, worked with my husband to see where property lines were, and put the pink and white ribbons out, this was last fall.   Have not seen where they have been back...but did not have a problem with the first guys that were here....but if they just contacted you in Center Twp. then they be headed this way.....

Permalink Reply by Mike h on March 16, 2015 at 6:57am

We were first contacted by TGS a couple months ago and told them we weren't interested. We were contacted by their lawyer(s) last week by certified mail. The seismic survey is being done on behalf of CHK and some other companies. CHK only has rights to the Queenston, Point Pleasant and Utica under our property. Our position is that they don't have rights to the data for anything above or below those strata and they have already drilled (under) our property for those strata.

I'm currently negotiating with TGS about blacking out the data provided to CHK for anything but the strata they are entitled to data for, providing us with access to the processed data and providing us with the raw data set (Hey, I'm a geek).

What you can be forced to do vs what you can negotiate vs the right to say no depends on your lease.

I would suggest that the data is valuable for a number of reasons. If the other party, say CHK, has the data and you don't, you are negotiating at a disadvantage if they want to lease other strata or negotiate anything else related to your land.

If you choose to sell your mineral rights, knowing what is in the seismic survey for your property can be an advantage.

Think about the signing bonuses involved in this area. $5 an acre for information that can have a large impact on both signing bonuses and royalties is a bargain for them.

Just sayin...

Permalink Reply by john on March 16, 2015 at 7:10am

PS:  THE MEASUREMENTS DO NOT GUARANTEE THE QUALITY OF THE GAS BELOW

Permalink Reply by Craig Cooper on March 16, 2015 at 12:31pm

Mike h,

You have every right, of course, to negotiate the best agreement you can but I'd like to offer one important reason why it is probably not in your best interest to try to limit CHK et al to a narrow window of seismic data for use in prospecting on your acreage.

Their success, and therefore your success in terms of royalty income, depends very strongly on the quality of seismic images. The quality of seismic images depends very strongly on the 'completeness' of the recorded data.

By limiting the amount of data, you are causing the quality of the seismic image of the subsurface geology to be significantly degraded. Therefore you are significantly diminishing the probability that CHK, et al will be as successful as you want them to be (and that they could be). 

The data needed to reconstruct the best image of subsurface geology is scattered across the hundreds of thousand of seismic records collected during field acquisition. Those records must be integrated & consolidated and the subsurface data moved into its correct position (both spatially and vertically) via special computers & apps.

Any gaps in or limits to the data reduces the quality of the reconstructed images and prevents CHK et al from properly interpreting the geology & associated rock properties. 

An old, but still a very good, illustration of this can be found at: http://www.mustagh.com/abstract/OPI_3D.html   While the information is out of date, the 4 images nicely demonstrate what I've attempted to describe above.

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