Death & Dollars

Full Transcript

ELIZA WITH PANDELL So, welcome everybody, my name is Eliza. It's great to have you joining us today for yet another Pandell Leadership Series webinar. The topic today is Death and Dollars, and that title is very intriguing. I'm sure it was to me when it was selected so, it's all about real GIS data and land management mistakes and how to avoid them.

So, incredibly useful information and we're delighted to have Steven and Mark here presenting for us today. So, without further ado, I am just going to pass the floor to you both and we'll get going on it.

STEVE WITH ESG I'd like to welcome everybody today. We're going to have a great webinar. My name is Steve Robins. I'm the VP of Global Marketing here at ESG. And I'm joined by Mark Woloszyk, who is from Whitestar. Mark, could you give folks just a brief introduction for yourself?

MARK WITH WHITESTAR Yes, thanks Steve. My name is Mark Woloszyk. I have a meteorology background. I've been a work for the National Weather Service. I've been at Whitestar for now 13 years. I started here making maps and then they said, "Well, why don't you just talk to people about what we do?" And that's kind of what my position is right now, Senior GIS Development Executive.

STEVEGreat, thanks Mark. So, we're going to start off by talking about GIS and land mistakes and how you can avoid them. We'll then give you a very brief introduction to Whitestar and Pandell at the very end. We'll open it up to your questions and then we'll talk about next steps.

If you think about your typical webinar, usually you hear about things like, "Well, you'll be able to improve efficiency or save money or get new customers." We're going to take a slightly different tactic today. Instead, today we're going to talk about some pretty scary stuff, including explosions, not going to beat around the bush, death, losing catastrophic amounts of money, damage to corporate reputation, and when things are working right, people that are doing amazing work and are getting credit for it.

So, not all bad, but a lot of it…the first part of this is going to be pretty scary, kind of gloomy. So, we'll talk about how you can get around that too, of course.

Now I should warn you that names and specific locations have been removed to protect the innocent. I think that's an important disclaimer in today's presentation.

STEVESo, let's start off with a bad harvest. Mark, can you tell us more about this?

MARK We work in many different verticals here, but this is a story from obviously a forestry company that we've dealt with. And what happened, the problem you can see right there, harvesting trees on sacred lands.

What we found out that they were using bad, cheap and inaccurate data, we call it somewhat of a Frankengrid. They've compiled this over 10 to 15 years. They had interns working, they had this piece here, this piece there and so forth. And using that bad data, sending out their team into the field.

And these trees, unfortunately, they've been there for hundreds and hundreds of years. They're a part of the local community, the tribal lands, if you will. And what they did was they started harvesting. And what the result was, they started harvesting on sacred land. And this is a monumental mistake that could have been avoided. And what the result was is having to replant the forest and they were in the end, fined millions of dollars.

STEVEThat is certainly something I would want to avoid for my company.

MARK Yeah, not a great scenario. And it's one of those things, time and time again, of somebody being more reactive than proactive. And the result of harvesting with inaccurate data and what they ended up doing was using a dataset that was derived from the authoritative source from the GLO [General Land Office] master title plats that we call in the industry, lots, tracts and quarter-quarters.

We have seen this time and time again of companies doing, cutting this in the sections that they do it automatically, that there's no background of where this data has come from. But we have the section township and range that everybody does have, but it's the subsection layer that was derived from the LTQQs, the lots, tracts, quarter-quarters from the GLO master title plats. And throughout the years, I've seen this time and time again of, hey, they're mapping things out and lot one with these lots, tracts and quarter-quarters is not always in the Northeast section. And even those irregular lots around the riverbends have been very important using this authoritative source of mapping.

And in addition, okay, so location's great using this, but also if you're leasing any land, maybe if you're a smaller company have one or two spots, but we're dealing with a lot of companies that lease thousands and thousands of different locations. And if you're paying 40 acres for this section, then it's truly inaccurate that, okay, with the legal source, with the authoritative source against it of the lots, tracts, quarter-quarters, this actually is only 27.1 acres that we should be providing to whoever the landowner is. And if you times that by tens of thousands of dollars that you're paying for leasing this land, it does add up quickly.

So, using that accurate data and obviously the mistake of harvesting on sacred land, which is a multimillion-dollar mistake and ruins reputations of the company and so on and so forth. So, using the authoritative source of the LTQQs queues over the United States and the PLSS [Public Land Survey System] lands is imperative.

STEVEGreat, thank you. Now let's take another track and talk about what can happen with a well. Mark, can you share this story?

MARK Yeah, and this is tried and true. It's a GIS problem and working with people out in the field. They make the maps, they send them out in the field and what happened, and this is true with any energy, with anybody doing any GIS, taking people out in the field is a bulldozer hit a well. And this could have cost significant damage to the people out in the field, to the surrounding area, and it could have led to loss of life.

I'm in Colorado right now, Steve, and we had an explosion down the road from where our office is and the company was fined $18.25 million because of the explosion that they hit a gas well. This could be an oil well that does environmental damage, so on and so forth.

STEVESo, what did they do to solve the problem?

MARK Well, with accurate data that you can actually use, this has been imperative of people, okay, with the Whitestar wells and also the lat/ long with the wells against the TrueGRID™ that we have is having that accuracy. This goes on with any data set within the GIS community, having that accurate data, trusted and true forth and sending your team out in the field, knowing exactly where your surrounding areas and what's around there. So, you avoid these costly mistakes of explosions. The one down the road was right by a school.

And then you have, not just the surrounding areas or the people around there as a community, but also the people working on the project. And it's a true and tried scenario of having that accurate data and investing within your GIS company.

STEVESo, let's talk about solar flare.

MARK So, we talked about forestry, we’ve talked about energy, and now this is a renewable sector where this is going on all over the United States and the world for that matter of renewables gearing up to greenfield, the land for solar project. And okay, that's great data side of things, but then you have the mapping of the land documents side of things, which is invaluable also of doing it accurately and correctly.

So, we had a renewable company, they're saying, well, we're gonna start greenfielding this area or this land and we have this document that we think is correct of doing a less-than-accept. And then we mapped it out here and discovered it was a wrong location. Now the result of this is, you know, you're starting new projects, you're greenfielding, you're setting out people in the field and you're starting to do the areas of the roadways that you may have to go out there, doing equipment, you're doing the harvesting, not harvesting, but getting rid of the land that you're gonna be putting it on there. And if you discovered an area and you don't map it out correctly, then you’re at the mercy of the landowner in the end.

STEVEWell, that does not sound like a good situation.

MARK No, not at all.

STEVESo, what was the solution for these folks?

MARK Well, Whitestar, and I'll not to be infomercial on this, but we have our land mappers that looked at the document and they mapped it out with our Whitestar FlexGIS mapping software that is automated with AI intelligence. We did 250,000 polygons last year alone, but we mapped it accurately against accurate grid.

And we see this, again, we have people that are not paid experts that do this, that are good at GIS, but we do this on a daily basis, or there's sources that do this. And if you're not doing it accurately with the accurate data behind there, then there's gonna be costly measures. And this less-than-accept that was done in the wrong area, they start greenfielding, that could be hundreds of thousands of dollars to start things off. And then you're at the mercy of the landowner in the end. So, the tried and true of this is that they ended up reconfiguring their area due to the Whitestar land mapping and everything was copacetic in the end.

STEVEOkay, well, we've covered a lot of ground so far. Let's take a look at oil rigs. So, can you tell us about this story?

MARK Anybody in the oil and gas industry has heard these stories, an oil company, that didn't have the right use of the land. They ended up starting this project, building the oil rig, and ended up being that, having somebody go out there and saying, "Hey, this is my land, you built this on the wrong area." Which that's, again, I always say that, with the media that you invest in is the infrastructure-based map that you use to build your infrastructure. Your whole point of this is investing. I look at, okay, I go to Kroger and get the Kroger brand, which is fine, you might save a couple bucks. This is for multi-million-dollar companies, multi-million-dollar projects that, why are you skimping on bad data or inaccurate data to do your mapping? It just doesn't make sense. And again, you're maybe being a little reactive if something goes wrong, but why not be proactive that the world is getting smaller? So, using the correct data that is essential in your day-to-day operations.

STEVEAnd what's the solution?

MARK Well, we, having or using highly curated Texas land survey data, using the abstracts, lots, surveys, what's lots, tracts and subdivisions. And this goes again, if you're using correct data, you're mapping to this correct data and getting the legal land descriptions that your ownership of, whether it be subsurface, whether it be surface ownership, you need to have this correct data and also have it mapped out correctly to do anything with your infrastructure process.

STEVEOkay, let's talk about a pipeline. What's this story?

MARK Yes, this came across us, that it was a part of the city of Los Angeles and then obviously a mainstream of pipeline company that they were notified that they would need to move a pipeline because they own the land. And the result of this of legal fees going back and forth, lawyers looking at the documents, which can again, it would be already said and done if you just have the right GIS tools of data and software. You're looking at construction and expense of moving the pipeline, sure. And then again, the company gets a bad taste in people's mouth if they're like, well, you don't own this and needed to move this and you don't have the rights to it.

STEVESo, what was the solution for this?

MARK Well, again, we mapped this out of their legal land holdings to prove the pipeline company owned the land. And this was through our FlexGIS mapping that have solved problems of legal issues. Now we've gone over less-than-accepts and it's so tried and true. Having an automated service rather than people doing COGO tools of hand entering it, fat fingering items. And having done 250,000 just polygons last year alone, 30 million through its lifetime and using the correct data time there, we have produced the lots, tracts, quarter-quarters from the authoritative source from the GLO master title plats and added 2 million polygons in California alone. So, having that additional data is crucial to your day-to-day operations, having it correctly too. And the result was with just a nominal investment of having us map this out that they didn't have to relocate it. They didn't have to bring lawyers fees. So, I would say that GIS saved the day here.

STEVECool, thank you. And we'll wrap it up with talking about who's gonna have to pay for things.

MARK Oh, this was another scenario of a pipeline company and the working with a government agency or county agency, if you will, that the pipeline, again, discrepancy of mapping things out, this is what it is, it's black and white. There's no other, there's no gray areas in this. So, they were going from a two-lane highway to a four-lane highway, and they were asked like, "Hey, you don't own this land, and you need to move this pipeline." And moving this particular, in this instance, was $2 million to move it. And these companies that, pipeline or midstream companies, they're happy to work with anybody, but what is right and what is wrong in this situation?

STEVESo, how did they resolve this?

MARK What they did was, again, a project that we did with the nominal investment that will save you millions of dollars in the end of, "Hey, this is the legal land document that we go as the, again, the authoritative source in this circumstance of you do own this land or do you not own the land?" And mapping it out in the GIS format, you can say, "Hey, rather than it goes through lawyers, rather than maybe have a survey or go out there and survey the land, you can see right here in this GIS format that we own this pipeline and the land surrounding it. Again, we'll help you out, but we don't believe that we should pay for moving our pipeline if we own the land." So, in the end, the company ended up, did move the land and then did a share cost with the city to move it. So, and then the four-lane highway went in, and all was copacetic.

STEVEGreat. So, they were able to, the big thing is they were able to really prove their ownership through better data.

MARK Better data and mapping services, certainly.

STEVERight, great. Okay, well, lots of interesting examples today. So, the next question becomes, how do you resolve these situations and how do you plan proactively for it?

The solution is a combination of Whitestar and Pandell. And so, we're gonna talk more about that right now. Mark, how can you prevent catastrophes with a single solution?

MARK Well, and I say this and I nerd out this cause I'm a map nerd, but I, and this is coming more and more from our partners that we work with is, hey, we're looking at one solution and I say one solution to rule them all, if anybody knows what that means, but it's having that data is the same going from county to county, having the same grid, the same well information, the same cultural information, the same parcel information, whether it be transmission lines or substations or pipeline data that we all provide to our partners. But using those and having the same metadata going from county to county across the US has been extremely important to do your analytics, whether you're doing FME scripting, Python, or bringing it into Esri Model Builder.

And then having those precision well data for the lat / longs has been invaluable also against the Whitestar TrueGRID™. And that's just from our feedback from our clients. I mean, a lot of people may be doing different sources too but knowing that a tried-and-true source of the lat/ long location, of sending your people out in the field, that you know exactly like, okay, this is an orphan well, we didn't know this was here. With the Whitestar data with the lat/ longs, you'll know exactly what you're running into. So, no death, destruction, or environmental catastrophes. And then you're avoiding duplications or confusions or anything like that.

STEVEGreat, okay. And can you tell us about this next point?

MARK Yeah, having one source to rule them all, I'll just put that in there again. But really having those fewer invoices, lowering the cost overall, it simplifies any procurement that you may have and reducing legal fees. We have our lawyer look at it, have your lawyer redline back and forth. I've seen that time and time again. Those RFPs [Request for proposal} are not occurred because you have again, the trusted source, Whitestar has been in this business over now, almost 35 years. And we are industry standard for a lot of our own data sets. So, having those trials and tribulations are gone.

So, we're going over the formats of the data and Whitestar has, like I said, almost 35 years around. We work well with Esri, we’re over 20 years business partner with Esri. And we provide the data in multiple formats, and one would be the ArcGIS streaming services, which I've seen the last few years that has been a big change. And people are like, "Hey, I don't wanna manage these gigabytes of gotten gigabytes each quarter for the updates. Do you have a streaming service that provides this? Yes, we do. We have it through all our data sets that we provide in our streaming feature or map services, or also in the WFS [Web Feature Service] or WMS [Web Map Service] service for other formats. But it's having that updated in a quarterly basis. And this is a side note of we provide the AMOD [Autonomous Mobility On-Deman] and GMOD date for all our data set that lets you know as a partner, when's the last time the attributes or geometry has changed. If you're wanting the data in a file geodatabase, we provide that also across the United States and in Canada. And also, we provide it in a cloud or SaaS [Software-as-a-Service] service.

So, I see some this through our partners of, "Hey, we want the streaming services, they're great, but we're doing this large project over large quantities or counties, if you will, and we need to download the data. And that's where our cloud or SaaS service comes in, where they can go there and say, "Hey, I want these 10 counties in this format, or hey, I'm working in Petro or Geographic or SMT Kingdom. And I want it natively or even AutoCAD with DXF, DWG files. And I want it in a native language, or I'm working in this state plane or UTM zone." So, and then also with the cloud and also with the streaming services, we provide those quarterly updates or a file geodatabase, we'll send that to you quarterly. So, your partners in the field can rest assured that this accurate data that you can take it out there.

So, we're always enhancing, evolving, as we should be as a GIS data and software company. Over the years have incorporated monument points collected out in the field to tighten our section lines. We've included survey data with a TrueGRID™. We have not included all of it because some of the survey data we've found was inaccurate and it wasn't up to our standards.

All our data again is connected with each other. So, if you're looking at this partial data, it is referenced to this for ground control section, township and range, or abstract block and survey in Texas, if you will. And also again, we can go over and just to reiterate with the lat/ long with the Whitestar wells against the Whitestar TrueGRID™ has been accurate to our partners.

STEVEGreat, thanks Mark. So, the Whitestar solution is really part of a combined Pandell and Whitestar offering that encompasses project evaluation, land acquisition, development of land, production, revenue billing, and finance, and corporate reporting. So, you can come to our company, and we can provide a complete solution that will start and end where it makes the most sense for your organization.

Taken together ESG, Pandell and Whitestar provide land and financial asset management, help you to prioritize projects, streamline processes and lower costs. The end results are that you're able to make better decisions and most importantly, create confidence and trust with landowners and other stakeholders. That would be the exact opposite of what you've seen today. And finally, our company serves a variety of different industries, including forestry, oil and gas upstream, midstream, field services, as well as renewables and others. And with that, I'd like to open it up to Q&A.

ELIZA WITH PANDELL Great, thank you Mark and Steve. Someone has asked, can you talk more about TrueGRID™ compared to the local authority of GIS, aka county data? Is that your source or do you adjust your grid?

MARK We have our nationwide TrueGRID™ that includes the lots, tracts, quarter-quarters. It's a continuous database with no gaps or slivers that we perfected this over 35 years. So, we've taken some time to invest in this product. And the county data or other sources, they're okay. We do grid challenges like you can compare this to what you have, but having that authoritative lots, tracts, quarter-quarters is essential for your mapping requirements. Having your infrastructure planning. And even when, as mentioned before with the monuments and also with the survey data incorporated, it just gets better and better each year. And people are like, well, that doesn't change. Well, we're fine tuning this with the work around us as we get into less and less of rural areas. And then we're having more cities build up and all that. So, it's that we provide the data for your analysis free of charge for a lot of our prospective partners and having that data, having that correct lot location and lot acreage is essential at this point.

MARK Whitestar offers a free evaluation of all our data sets. And this is getting into, hey, use the data. We send a URL to go in the ESRI software. It's free of charge and you can use that and do your analysis of it. Does it work for you? Well, more often circumstances than not it does. And that's why we've provide it because we can talk about it, but I'm more of a visual learner. So, if I see that visually and can use it hands-on within my environment, that's been very crucial. And please reach out to me and I do my weekly bad maps and hopefully everybody's enjoying that also.

ELIZA WITH PANDELL Great, thanks, Mark. Any last words from you, Steve?

STEVESure, well, I'd invite everybody to learn more about Pandell and Whitestar at Pandell.com or Whitestar.com and watch a product demo. If you fill out a form, we're glad to provide more information and you'll get more information in your email inbox.

ELIZA WITH PANDELL Thanks so much again, Mark and Steve. It was just a pleasure to have you present with us today. And thank you to everybody in the audience for joining us. We hope you will join us at the next Pandell Leadership Webinar. Have a great afternoon.