Interview: Spencer Albright, President, MineralWare

Eric Eissler: Please provide some background as to what your company does and how you do it.

Spencer Albright: MineralWare is an all-encompassing, cloud-based oil and gas asset management platform. We provide the leading software for managing mineral, royalty and non-operated working interest assets. Our clients are able to see their position on a map, track revenue, ensure accurate payments, locate missing payments, access nationwide well, permit, and production data, and much more. MineralWare was founded with the goal of easing the management of oil and gas assets by automating and consolidating processes that traditionally are executed manually.

EE: Could you provide a deeper dive into all the software you use to track mineral rights?

SA: The MineralWare software package is designed to be a one-stop shop for all mineral and royalty management needs. With permits, nationwide production, revenue and corresponding analytics, clients can track the life cycle of their wells. Additionally, our robust land module allows clients to map and manage lease activity and provide a secure auditable location for their land documents.

EE: As a newer company, what do you feel it was that got you out of the gate on the right foot?

SA: From the beginning we knew, to be successful, we had to prioritize the client and the client’s experience. It is one thing to build powerful and robust software, but the secret to our success has been our focus on satisfying the needs of our clients. Our core values of S.E.R.V.E (Service, Excellence, Relationships, Virtues and Enthusiasm) are what we strive to live out every day in our client interactions. We have a retention rate of more than 98 percent this year which shows that we are on the right track.

EE: Managing mineral rights is not an easy task. Are you connected to government databases to keep track of all the mineral rights? How does that work?

SA: I feel land is changing hands or new boundaries are being demarcated, [so] how do you keep track of all the action? From the beginning we wanted to source our data directly from the government organizations populating it, so we spent a significant amount of time and resources to connect to each producing state’s databases which allows us to provide up-to-date information for our clients. The rest comes directly from clients. If an asset is sold or gifted, they are able to make the modifications to their owned interests directly on the platform.

EE: Could you expound on how things go wrong (what are some common issues?) and how your services allow the user to handle the problems?

SA: We have a diverse group of clients from family offices, acquisition companies, universities/foundations to financial institutions, so the issues vary significantly. Some clients have little experience in the oil and gas industry and are starting with the need to understand what they own while other clients manage multiple complex accounts and need the ability to provide scheduled reports to shareholders, investors or their own clients. A common theme across the entire mineral ownership spectrum is lost or suspended revenue, commonly referred to as “suspended funds.” This can occur for a variety of reasons, some of which are as simple as failure to sign a division order or as complicated as title disputes. Using our nationwide fabric of well data and mapping technology, our software automatically identifies areas of potential suspense and our team helps recover those funds for our clients and bring those wells into payment. It is important to stay organized as a mineral or royalty owner in order to make well-informed decisions when receiving correspondence from an operator or purchaser. Our software solves this problem by organizing and storing everything in a digital filing cabinet tied to interests and leases. MineralWare provides a solution to a wide variety of consumer needs.

EE: What are some of the reasons I would want to use your service over another one?

SA: The quality of software and customer service is something that differentiates us from the rest of the mineral management software packages on the market. MineralWare is continually launching new features developed in partnership with our clients to ensure that as their needs change our software maintains the significant value that it has from the beginning. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, we pride ourselves on the level of service we provide – if any of our clients have account issues, our client success team provides the perfect solution to any problem. Our team is continually working to push monthly updates in order for us to stay up-to-date on the latest market trends and consumer needs. In light of the level of customer service we provide, most of our competitors belong to larger tech conglomerates that are not solely focused on improving their solution. We are a standalone company that is only focused on improving our mineral management product, and it shows.

EE: How has your software reduced paperwork? Does it make it more efficient in buying and selling rights?

SA: Our software has automated time-consuming back office processes for all of our clients. With our platform, clients receive lease expiration alerts, permit proximity alerts, rig location alerts, new well alerts, and other monthly summary alerts, along with much more. With the launch of our sister platform Energy Domain in the spring, users will be able to monitor areas of interest and quickly buy and sell directly. The listing process is completely streamlined with land and revenue data already being digitized in MineralWare and readily available in any format through our custom reporting feature.

EE: Where do you plan to go from here? All software gets upgrades and updates; is there anything in the works that you can tell us about?

SA: We work to improve our software every day! Our goal is to continue to add features that our current clients request, and future clients need. Our next big add will be non-op, joint interest billing (JIB) tracking and reporting and analysis to link with everything we already have. This will provide even more visibility for our owners and ALL of their interests. We have made a heavy investment in our development team and will be rolling out other products in addition to Energy Domain in 2021.

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