After allowing well location plats to be prepared by anyone with a pulse and an ink pen, the Texas Railroad Commission has finally decided that maybe the process should be limited to land surveyors. This just in from the Texas Society of Professional Land Surveyors:
The Texas Railroad Commission has posted in the Texas Register proposed rule changes to the Texas Administrative Code that will require plats submitted to the Texas Railroad Commission be certified by an Registered Professional Land Surveyor or (emphasis added) a Professional Engineer. Follow this link to review the proposed rule changes. http://www.sos.state.tx.us/texreg/pdf/backview/1106/index.shtml
This particular rule change is to Title 16. Economic Regulation, Part 1. Railroad Commission of Texas, Chapter 3. Oil and Gas Division, Section 3.86. Horizontal Drainhole Wells (g), (2), (B), (6) Plat Requirements and it can be found on page 7774 of the Texas Register. Additional rule changes pertaining to information on the plats are found in Section 3.5 Application to Drill, Deepen, Reenter, or Plug Back, of the document. Comments to the Commission are due by noon on Monday December 7, 2015.
I think that this is a case where GIS actually showed the Railroad Commission Staff how inconsistent the well plats can be coming in from different sources.
Ah yes. Now for the hat trick. How many location plats have you seen, signed by surveyors, that didn't meet the MTS? I've seen plenty and a cursory review of the RRC site can give you as many as you like. Does it then follow that all plats for wells, will have to have ALL of the MTS info, such as found, set, caps (dear lord), calls, volumes, pages, et cetera, on a 1"=1000' legal sheet and any conflicts that may happen?
Gonna be interesting for sure.
Most drillers around here want something prepared by a Licensed Surveyor.
To me, a well site plat was somewhat in the Mortgage Survey category that was more to indicate well spacing and site elevation within than lease than anything else.
I have seen many well plats prepared by a landman or someone (their credentials aren't exactly listed) and the drawing is akin to a crayon sketch on a paper bag. I've recently noticed a civil engineer who bought his own JAVAD gps unit running around west Texas preparing well plats. Not sure he has enough experience with boundaries to properly breakdown a T&P Block, but there's his plat sitting in the RRC GIS.
Real property in the form of mineral assets is affected, why would anyone want something on the order of a mortgage survey? How do you know you are even within the lease if you don't establish the boundary?
The current regs for the "legal sheet" do not, in my opinion, allow the surveyor enough real estate to properly show a boundary breakdown or any component parts thereof at a scale of 1"=1000'. It's insane. Making us sign and seal them on a standard 640-acre unit "could" be done properly; however, give me a 1000-acre unit with a 4000' lateral and a surface, pop, two take points, and bottom hole, AND you have to tie them all off and there isn't enough room to show all of the MTS that is required by the board the second you sign and seal it. Either the RRC better let us at least go to 11x17 or TBPLS better make some rules that allow for some exceptions to something. You're screwed the second you sign it, but it's not like the TBPLS is going on the RRC website and hammering surveyors with substandard well location plats so who knows what will happen.
You mean you have to squeeze all of the required information on to 1-8 1/2 x 11 sheet? They won't allow multiple sheets?
When you get Wells that have a horizontal 2 miles long it gets tricky to get everything on letter size paper.
I've been doing sheets, sometimes four of them, it that allowed?
Most well plats are 8.5x14 but many of my stacked wells are on 11x17. RRC allows oversized plats, Kris.
Most surveyors in my area of practice do include a note saying the full boundary reconstruction is available on request. It's hard to adequately show the boundary construction on a small sheet when you have to go 8 miles in either direction to adequately tie controlling monuments as well as the information required for the well.
They have always kicked back my oversized plats and forced me to go to 1"=2000' to maintain the 8.5x14 sheet.
Maybe it's just the horizontal or stacked horizontal wells. Stacked Horizontal Well Example (PDF) They get so dense, there's no way you could show everything on a legal sheet. The one I linked to isn't even really that crowded.
The biggest thing that I have been ask for was if I had sufficiently surveyed the entire Unit and if ask would I have a problem with providing a metes and bounds for the Unit.
My answer was of course I can easily provide a metes and bounds, however the drawing would be a minimum of 24x48 to show everything properly.
They insisted that it was not necessary to show that much detail on a well site drawing, they were only interested in the basic information.
[USER=7]@Andy Nold[/USER] , thanks for putting that out there. I want to point out a few things, and it's not criticism but an illustration of my point. As far as well locations go, this is much more than I normally see. However, these facts remain.
RULE å¤663.18 Certification
(a) The Registered Professional Land Surveyor shall personally apply his/her seal and signature to final documents released to the public representing professional land surveying as defined in the Act. The professional land surveyor shall maintain control and possession over his/her seal at all times.
You signed and sealed it and specifically state that it is not a boundary survey. These are at cross purposes and, according to the board in the past, a violation.
RULE å¤663.19 Survey Drawing/Written /Description/Report
(e) Boundary monuments found or placed by the land surveyor shall be described upon the survey drawing. The land surveyor shall note upon the survey drawing, which monuments were found, which monuments were placed as a result of his/her survey, and other monuments of record dignity relied upon to establish the corners of the property surveyed.
The Northwest corner of the lease is not defined as anything either found or set or calculated.
(f) A reference shall be cited on the drawing and prepared description to the record instrument that defines the location of adjoining boundaries.
Nowhere on the plat are the record instruments that define either the mineral lease or the unit declarations, which may not satisfy this requirement or the volumes and pages where a description of the subject lease or the adjoining leases can be found. This appears to be a violation.
RULE å¤663.16 Boundary Construction
(C) All boundaries shall be connected to identifiable physical monuments related to corners of record dignity. In the absence of such monumentation the land surveyor's opinion of the boundary location shall be supported by other appropriate physical evidence, which shall be explained in a land surveyor's sketch or written report.
Without a reference to a volume/page for the instrument, it's impossible to tell if the corners you found were of record dignity (since they are section corners I doubt it) nor do you reference a report that explains why you held them.
RULE å¤663.19 Survey Drawing/Written /Description/Report
(a) All reports shall delineate the relationship between record monuments and the location of the boundaries surveyed; such relationship shall be shown on the survey drawing, if a drawing is prepared, and/or separate report and recited in the description with the appropriate record references recited thereon and therein.
This is the rule that used to have the "material discrepancy" note in it. However, it still says show the relationship. It would follow that the calls for that line, both of your tract and the adjoining tract, should be shown.
Of the ones I saw, that would total, under the penalty matrix, fines of $4,600.
Like I said Andy, I'm not hammering you, but illustrating that a well location, as we understand them, cannot be made to be compliant without either a lessening of the rules, or a helluva lot more paper.
Also, the board has said many times that once cannot certify oneself out of liability so your note 3 does nothing. The signature and seal kick the rest in and that has been the stance of the board as long as I have been surveying.
With respect sir.
First, I've never done a well site map. I'm within walking distance of the World's Richest Acre, but I've done very little oilfield related survey work in my 20 years as a professional. So take that into consideration.
I would say, though, that much of what you've pointed out, I believe, hinges on this point :
Kris Morgan, post: 345977, member: 29 wrote: [USER=7]@Andy Nold[/USER]
RULE å¤663.18 Certification
(a) The Registered Professional Land Surveyor shall personally apply his/her seal and signature to final documents released to the public representing professional land surveying as defined in the Act. The professional land surveyor shall maintain control and possession over his/her seal at all times.You signed and sealed it and specifically state that it is not a boundary survey. These are at cross purposes and, according to the board in the past, a violation.
I believe the statutes allow for surveyors to apply their seal to work that is outside the Act:
663.18(e)
(e) Registered professional land surveyors may certify, using the registrant's signature and official seal, services which are not within the definition of professional land surveying as defined in the Act, provided that such certification does not violate any Texas or federal law.
I have placed my seal on a report for a control survey that had nothing to do with boundary surveying. I've also applied my seal to topographic surveys that had nothing to do with boundary surveying. I had this discussion with the previous investigator, Mr. Gilley. He had the view that a seal was only appropriate on boundary surveys. When I pointed out this section, he never provided a satisfactory response.
If the board would say and agree with your statement, then I'd say that Andy and others are compliant; however, each conversation we've had with the board regarding this, over the last 20 years, comes back to you sign it, seal it, it is a boundary survey.
I hear you, and I've heard others of prominence express the same opinion. I'm just not sure how it squares with 663.18e. What's the point of it? I guess when I have time, I'll look through the Texas Registry and see if there is some explanation of this rule that contradicts how I keep reading it.
Also, the Act specifically states:
Sec. 1071.002. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:
6) "Professional surveying" means the practice of land, boundary, or property surveying or other similar professional practices. The term includes:
(A) performing any service or work the adequate performance of which involves applying special knowledge of the principles of geodesy, mathematics, related applied and physical sciences, and relevant laws to the measurement or location of sites, points, lines, angles, elevations, natural features, and existing man-made works in the air, on the earth's surface, within underground workings, and on the beds of bodies of water to determine areas and volumes for:
(i) locating real property boundaries;
(ii) platting and laying out land and subdivisions of land; or
(iii) preparing and perpetuating maps, record plats, field note records, easements, and real property descriptions that represent those surveys; and
(B) consulting, investigating, evaluating, analyzing, planning, providing an expert surveying opinion or testimony, acquiring survey data, preparing technical reports, and mapping to the extent those acts are performed in connection with acts described by this subdivision.
Mineral lines are real property.
Then,
RULE å¤663.18 Certification
(a) The Registered Professional Land Surveyor shall personally apply his/her seal and signature to final documents released to the public representing professional land surveying as defined in the Act. The professional land surveyor shall maintain control and possession over his/her seal at all times.
Up until this rule change, anyone, as Andy noted, with a pulse, could sign a well location plat. We would do all of the surveying and stake the well, but the well location plats were not compliant with current TBPLS MTS, and as such, we did not sign them. A regulatory agent for the O&G company would. This has been the practice since the MTS went into effect unless we were allowed to survey the entire unit and then we had multiple parts.
I would love to see the board agree with you on this one; however, their stance in the past has not been one of this. I suppose they could gig us for NOT applying a signature and seal as we released final products to the public and it appears that O&G well staking is within the scope of professional boundary surveying. I don't know, but I have more questions than answers about this proposed rule change to the RRC rules.
(a) The Registered Professional Land Surveyor shall personally apply his/her seal and signature to final documents released to the public representing professional land surveying as defined in the Act. The professional land surveyor shall maintain control and possession over his/her seal at all times.
With this cited statute, I see this as an expressed mandate to seal and sign a boundary survey (shall personally apply...to final documents... representing professional land surveying as defined..."). If it is a boundary survey, then the surveyor must sign and seal the documents. However, I don't see this statute as prohibiting the surveyor from applying his seal and signature to documents that are not boundary surveying. The statute seems to me to work in one direction: "apply seal if it is a boundary survey", but not in the contrapositive "do not seal if it is not a boundary". At least I don't see the explicit language forbidding it.
Feel free to post one of your well plats so I can see how you do it.
I am well aware of the issue with well plats and certification. I will be happy to turn myself into the board along with a fat pile of well location plats issued by other registered surveyors across the state. I also have a couple of landmen and civil engineer certified plats that I will bring too. I believe that the RRC and the board have been working to resolve this issue with the newly proposed rules and until they take affect, I will continue to issue well plats as I have been.
As you know, the AG has issued an opinion stating that the TBPLS can not require a well location plat to be prepared by a registered surveyor.
If the plat is an issue, the full boundary survey is available at my office.
[sarcasm]Thanks for your point by point review of known issues.[/sarcasm] I do look forward to seeing your example. Feel free to just post the APC number. Call me thin skinned today.
See, that's what I was worried about. I didn't want you to take it badly. I know you do good work, but my point was and is that it's exceedingly difficult for the plat to stand on it's own.
As far as mine, they are not signed, with the exception of a very few. But I believe that turnabout is fair play and should you find a problem with this one, I welcome the comments. 🙂
Have a great weekend [USER=7]@Andy Nold[/USER] . I seriously wasn't trying to piss you off. 🙂
Here is one we prepared that is not signed and sealed. It looks like the other thousand that we've drawn. 🙂
