Leasing. Mineral Rights. These are often the first and the last thing you look at when exploring new opportunities. If you can’t lease the land or arrange for access to the mineral rights, then you have to look elsewhere. And as Silas points out in his recent article on Land Grids, there is nothing automatic about putting centuries old legalese into a usable format.
Of course that’s exactly what we do here at Drillinginfo; we gather, digitize, and QC land data from a variety of sources, analyze the information for hidden insights, and then bring everything to you in a format that is easy to use and easy to act on.
For our sixth installment of Inside Drillinginfo’s Map Drawers, I spoke with Lease Analyst II Gary Brown about this map of Drillinginfo’s Lease Count & Mineral Appraisal Coverage for the state of Texas.
Map Title: DI Lease Count & Mineral Appraisal Coverage
Who asked for the map, and what did they ask for?
Drillinginfo Leasing Supervisor, Vanessa Trejo, asked for a map that would show some of the work the Land/Leasing Department is responsible for.
Which DI Cartography Group Made it?
Leasing Department
Completion Date/Date of Production?
July 2014
Medium: Web/Print/Digital? (if web, WMS? WFS?)
Type or Style of Map (Projections?) (GCS? PCS?)
The projection used for this map was GCS North American 1927.
Sources of Data and How Processed?
With the exception of the USA Topo Maps, which was obtained through ESRI, all of the layers come from the DI dataset. A 75% transparent layer of the shale plays layered over the mineral appraisal and lease count layers.
Choice of Scale/Direction and why?
The scale of this map is set to 1:6,500,000 to which allows us to show the full coverage of Texas.
Choice of Color Palette and Font(s) and why? Transparencies?
The different shades of green were used to compliment the natural earth tones. An oil drop was used to display which counties are covered. Shale plays for the state were also used and the transparency was set to 75% since we wanted it to be laid on top of other layers and those still be visible.
Why we love it?
We love this map because it shows some of the work that we spend a lot of our time and effort on. There are more than 365,000 leases in Texas alone that we are responsible for and the mineral appraisal product requires several employee work hours to complete each year. An additional benefit of this map is it gives the leasing department an opportunity to show some of our other capabilities.
Your Turn
What do you think? Leave a comment below.
Eric Roach
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