Elk Range Royalties Skyrockets Mineral Acquisition Success

Background

Established in 2020, Elk Range Royalties focuses on acquiring long-life-producing mineral and royalty interests. Currently, Elk Range manages a portfolio consisting of approximately 40,000 NRAs with an interest in over 5,000 horizontal wells across the Permian, Uinta, Anadarko, Eagle Ford, Haynesville, Denver-Julesburg, and Appalachian basins under the Elk Range Royalties, 89 Energy II Minerals and Land Run Minerals platforms.

By early 2021, Elk Range saw the need to scale its ability to efficiently handle an increasing deal flow and sustain its commitment to long-term relationships and precise asset evaluation. The decision to integrate ComboCurve as its primary tool for A&D and reserves was a major factor in its current success.

“The volume of deals that we can look at in a single week has undoubtedly skyrocketed, which is exciting to see. That is directly attributed to our ability to seamlessly link our data and utilize ComboCurve to streamline our process.”

– Samantha Johnson, Senior A&D Reservoir Engineer, Elk Range Royalties

We sat down with Samantha Johnson, a Senior A&D Reservoir Engineer previously with Pioneer, to talk about her time using legacy workflows and her current experience with ComboCurve.

 

The Legacy Picture: Time, Errors, and Limited Support

Pre-2021, Elk Range’s operations had challenges that affected their efficiency and competitiveness in the market:

• Time-consuming and error-prone manual processes involved pushing data back to Excel and double-checking units: “[Without the API system] it’s just a lot of importing and exporting, and it takes more time to bring it back in, double check that your units are correct.”
• “I would be struggling in Access, trying to dump things into ARIES and make tweaks. And the reporting was always overly difficult to get exactly what you needed out. “
• Manual data entry and adjustments often led to significant discrepancies in project evaluations and decisions, making things more complicated in their operations.
• Technical limitations and lack of support particularly during crucial off-hours for A&D activities were also major frustrations: “No customer success team. You know, you can reach out to your peers and ask, but typically these random crises happen after hours.”

This laborious process proved challenging when it came to the time-sensitive evaluations of mineral investment viability, highlighting the urgent need for a more integrated, automated solution that could streamline operations, provide reliable support, and ensure data accuracy — all of which ComboCurve addressed effectively.

 

API Integration for Fast Asset Evaluation

Elk Range leverages ComboCurve’s API to seamlessly link with various data sources, improving both data accuracy and access speed. This setup allows for real-time updates and quicker evaluations of deals in a competitive market.

“I’d say that [API connection] is a huge piece of what allows us to be so nimble and work deals so quickly. You can see the benefits of what we’ve built out and how the API connection to ComboCurve really helps us. Plus, the ability to directly connect land data and PDPs through the API is critical for quickly processing individual units and making informed decisions.”

Over the past two years, Elk Range has used ComboCurve’s API to efficiently integrate data, manage two deals a day on average, and expand rapidly into new territories, like Haynesville, Appalachia, and Eagle Ford.

 

Efficient Type Curve Management

Elk Range streamlines its evaluation process by creating and storing type curves for various basins in lookup tables. This system allows quick access to essential data and imports them into their project so that their team can assess new basins and refine their analyses based on initial well performance insights in that area daily.

To Elk Range, it’s all about managing the “What If’s”.

 “Any way that we can see the data faster allows us to spend more time to understand a new basin. Having a place to store and automatically run a first pass, then see how we like the deal, and if it’s something we want to pursue – is definitely helpful.”

Manage More Data in Less Time For A&D

Elk Range strategically focuses on securing both marketed and brokered deals, while also heavily engaging in ground game and similar transactions. They closed out their first investment fund in March 2023 and initiated Elk Range Royalties II with NGP Energy Capital as its private equity backer.

“I think it is a very key piece to deploying capital efficiently and has been streamlined by our data integration team and our land team on the front end reviewing the VDR materials and understanding the land data. Doing the legwork first, and then we don’t have to double-check as much on the back end. I get very clean data and that’s huge as an engineer.”

This process enables quick deal assessments and the refinement of project assumptions, using established baselines for accuracy.

 

For Reserves

Elk Range also has significantly improved the operational efficiency of its reserves management, now capable of handling multiple entities simultaneously within the same timeframe – a process that previously would have taken much longer.

 

Elk Range Royalties has elevated its approach to A&D and reserves management by implementing ComboCurve, which has sped up processes and enhanced the accuracy of their data sets. By moving away from the status quo and outdated legacy workflows, Elk Range ensures it remains competitive, and equipped with the best tools for the job.