By Andrew Cass

An Ohio woman recently found a copy of this "Landman’s Manual" on her driveway after a landman tried to get her to lease her land to a gas and oil company. The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, handed the manual over to Responsible Drilling Alliance member John Trallo, who uploaded the document to the Internet.

A landman is an agent hired by gas companies to negotiate with landowners in order to get a lease signed at the lowest possible price per acre with the lowest possible royalty payments for any extracted gas.

In a section titled "Talking Points for Selling Oil and Gas Lease Rights," the "Landman’s Manual" explains in detail how landmen should talk to landowners, what topics they should talk about and what topics to avoid. The manual says that "successful field agents understand what points to focus on so the benefits outweigh the cons."

According to the manual, most landowners don’t know the difference between hydraulic fracturing and slick water hydraulic fracturing. The landmen are told to use this fact to their advantage, but to avoid the topic if a landowner does know about slick water fracturing.

The manual also instructs landmen to "reassure landowners no well contamination has ever been documented," and it says not to "mention water contamination in Pennsylvania." If Pennsylvania is brought up by the landowners, they are told to leave their answers vague.

The manual stresses the importance of telling landowners that China bought more oil than the U.S. last year.

"Fear of foreign encroachment is the biggest asset we have in selling our development strategy," it states.

Whenever the conversation with a landowner turns to local issues or environmental hazards, the landmen are instructed to reiterate the fact that China bought more gas than the U.S. last year.

Landmen are told to avoid talking about property values. According to the manual, multiple studies have found that property values decrease for land with oil and gas leases on the property and several major banks have stopped issuing mortgages on these properties. If backed into this issue, the landmen are told to "talk about the potential revenues and the overall needs of the nation" and to once again reiterate the point that China bought more gas than the U.S. last year.

The manual instructs the landmen to talk to men whenever possible because "men are more likely to sign than women. Men don’t like to believe that they know more than you do, so they are less likely to ask questions."

A PDF of the "Landsman's Manual - Talking Points for Selling Oil and Gas Lease Rights" can be found at this link.