Information regarding SIOR’s known leases as of early January 2012 can be found at the link below, along with information on other Companies in the play.
Additional/Supplemental information can be found by subscribing to Dillinginfo’s services at, http://info.drillinginfo.com/urb/emerging-plays/, which I highly recommend. These services are mainly offered for use by Landmen, & may strike many investors as being rather costly. However, the information provided will enable any investor to know what is going on within various plays 3 to 6 months before the mass public is made aware. This is plenty of time to cautiously build a sizeable positions in a given security long before the news is ever released…
I disagree with the following statements of yours:
“The line about not wanting competitors to find out where you are buying land is bunk. There plenty of public companies showing general locations without disclosing exact locations”.
To the contrary, I believe that all competent Oil & Gas Companies hide their proprietary information, leasing intentions, and play strategies until the it is no longer beneficial to do so.
The Upstream Oil & Gas Industry is incredibly competitive. Governmental Politics is the only other arena that I can think of that shares similar levels of competition. Because of this competition, companies that get their hands on information indicating or even suggesting the presence of a potential resource play (or for that matter a potential sweet-spot within a given resource play) will first assemble the land position that best suits their business model while maintaining absolute silence & often leasing through 3rd party companies to hide their identity. Only when they have accumulated their targeted land position will they then publicly announce the play &/or their position.
Example: Both Sandridge & Chesapeake sought leases in the then un-announced Mississippian Lime Play. Once they had ½ million acres secured by leases, they announced the play & their positions. I doubt that you have ever heard of a company announcing: “core analysis & preliminary drilling results suggest that the ABC Shale is a prospective resource play that could rival the Baaken. We will now begin leasing within this new play”… No, it doesn’t work that way, why invite competition in to steal your potential leases & drive the cost of securing leases through the roof…
Please Note: I am not suggesting that E&P’s stop leasing as soon as they make the their announcement. More often than not, they continue their leasing campaign, and this is probably the situation that you were thinking about when you made the statements that I referred to above.
SIOR is in the phase of building their position. They are securing minerals on the Northeastern edge of the play, where they have reason to believe that they can achieve significantly higher IP rates the play’s average IP rates. To announce their intentions now would be showing their hand to all of their competition.
SIOR’s behavior with regards to their current leasing endeavors is commonplace & in fact the norm in the oil & gas industry.
-- On another note, watch out for those arrogant Australian Oil Companies... They think that US drillers are incompetent, & that they are the only people capable of making hole... Their arrogance & attitude will make it difficult for them to navigate the play's learning curve as fast as their competitors. This will only be an issue in the case where they are operators...
Good Luck on all your Mississippi Lime ventures...
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