NAPE, for short. The American Association of Professional Landmen (AAPL) and the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) co-host two NAPE trade shows in Houston every year: Summit NAPE each February, and Summer NAPE in either July or August. This year's Summer NAPE is August 15-16 in the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston.
Over a hundred exhibitors will have booths to showcase the deals they will try to make during this event highly attended by oil and gas management and well-heeled oilmen. Some booths will display exploration prospects the company manning it wants to show off, to attract investors. Other booths will tout blocks of producing wells for sale. There also will be numerous booths for investment capitalists, those looking to offer the financing to swing the deals that will be hammered out.
This is not just a "looky-loo" get-together. There are very real, very powerful deals made at both the Summit and Summer NAPE expos each year. Why is any of this important to a landman, division order analyst, or lease/land analyst working in the industry? Because the deals made that the NAPE show next month will result in career opportunities for landmen and analysts. When a company buys, or buys into, a prospect already worked up by another company, the landmen and analysts working for the purchaser fly into action to bring the new acquisition in-house, into the buyer's database records and beyond. Then the engineers and "ists" (geologists, geophysicists) can get to work to plan development of the shiny, new oil or gas production opportunity.
But what about the mineral owners, royalty owners, and land owners? It means that the first solid step has been made to bring their lease from non-producing status to producing status. And that means royalty checks will start arriving in the not-so-distant future. For the surface land owner, it means they can expect lots of phone calls and letters breaking the ice to acquire the numerous surface agreements the buyer needs before a rig can be hauled in.
The success of next month's NAPE might just be the harbinger for the course of the industry over the next twelve months. If this year's Summer NAPE is better attended than last year's, it will signal the industry is strengthening and investment capital could soon be flowing freely again. So far, it looks like this year's expo will be bigger than last year's.
