What Energy Companies Often Overlook When Evaluating Abstracting Vendors

When energy companies evaluate abstracting vendors, the conversation usually starts with two questions: how much does it cost, and how fast can you get it done?

Those are reasonable starting points. Price and turnaround time matter. They're also the easiest factors to compare across vendors, which is probably why they dominate the evaluation process.

The problem is that price and speed don't tell you much about what you're actually going to receive, how complete it will be, or how much additional work your team will need to do after delivery. The factors that determine those outcomes are harder to evaluate from the outside, but they're the ones that end up affecting your project timelines, your legal review process, and your total cost of ownership.

Here's what we'd recommend looking at beyond the quote.

Does the Vendor Help You Define the Scope?

One of the clearest signals of an experienced abstracting partner is how they handle the initial conversation. A vendor who takes your order exactly as submitted and starts working is giving you efficiency on the front end but potentially creating problems downstream.

A vendor who asks questions about what you're using the product for, and then recommends the right product for that use case, is protecting you from ordering more than you need or less than your project requires.

A vendor who asks questions about what you're using the product for, and then recommends the right product for that use case, is protecting you from ordering more than you need or less than your project requires.

There's a real difference in terminology between landmen and abstractors. The same words can mean different things depending on which side of the transaction you're on. An experienced vendor recognizes this and takes responsibility for making sure the scope matches the objective before any work begins.

We generate the scope of work on every engagement rather than relying on the client's initial request. That approach ensures the deliverable matches the actual use case, and it gives us the information we need to provide accurate cost and timeline estimates upfront. If a vendor doesn't ask what you're using the product for, that's worth noting.

What Format Does the Deliverable Come In?

This is one of the most overlooked factors in vendor evaluation, and it has a direct impact on your total project cost.

That reformatting work takes hours on every project, and the cost doesn't show up on the vendor's invoice.

Some vendors deliver ownership reports as Word documents without copies of the underlying documents. That means someone on your team still needs to order copies separately, organize them, build an index, and bookmark everything so a landman or attorney can actually work with the material. That reformatting work takes hours on every project, and the cost doesn't show up on the vendor's invoice.

We deliver abstracts and runsheets as PDFs with a spreadsheet index and bookmarked documents that correspond to the index entries. A landman or attorney can pull up the index on one screen and the documents on another, then move through the entire file by clicking through bookmarks. No reformatting required.

When you're comparing vendors on price, factor in what happens after delivery. A lower invoice that requires hours of internal processing may cost more in total than a higher invoice that delivers a ready-to-use product.

How Deep Is Their Database?

Any abstractor can pull records from a government office. The question is whether they have anything to cross-reference those records against.

Government records are not always complete. At the BLM, our specialist estimates that roughly 90% of scanned lease files are missing at least some documents. At the state land office, critical instruments are filed separately from the main lease file and aren't indexed in a way that connects them to the lease they relate to.

A vendor without that database has no way to verify completeness beyond what the government office tells them.

A vendor with a deep proprietary database can cross-reference what the government provides against their own records and identify gaps before delivering the product. A vendor without that database has no way to verify completeness beyond what the government office tells them. That's a meaningful difference in quality assurance, and it's worth asking about.

Our database covers New Mexico state and federal land records going back to the 1920s, continuously updated since 2000. When we receive a file from the BLM labeled "complete," we can check it against our own records. We regularly find documents that are missing from what the government considers a complete file.

Do They Specialize or Generalize?

Abstracting for state and federal oil and gas leases is specialized work. The filing systems, the ownership structures, the regulatory requirements, and the common pitfalls are all specific to this area. A vendor who handles state and federal abstracting as one service among many may not have the depth of experience that a specialist brings.

Specialization shows up in practical ways. A specialist knows which BLM files tend to run incomplete. They know where state land office miscellaneous instruments end up and how to connect them back to the relevant lease. They know the staff at the offices where they work, which means smoother interactions and faster access to information.

Abstracting is all we do. That focus means every process, every team member, and every investment in our business is directed at doing this one thing well.

Do They Carry E&O Insurance?

Errors and omissions insurance is one of the most important and most overlooked factors in vendor evaluation. E&O coverage protects clients when an error in the abstracting work leads to a problem downstream. In an industry where title research directly affects deal structure, ownership determinations, and legal opinions, that protection matters.

Most abstracting vendors don't carry E&O insurance. It's not required in most jurisdictions, and the cost is significant enough that many vendors choose to operate without it. That means if an error in their work creates a problem for your project, there's no insurance backing to help resolve it.

For clients whose projects involve significant financial exposure, knowing that their abstractor carries E&O coverage provides a layer of protection that a disclaimer on an invoice does not.

We carry E&O insurance and provide certified abstracts. That certification means we stand behind the accuracy and completeness of what we deliver. For clients whose projects involve significant financial exposure, knowing that their abstractor carries E&O coverage provides a layer of protection that a disclaimer on an invoice does not.

When you're evaluating vendors, ask whether they carry E&O insurance. If the answer is no, consider what that means for your risk exposure on projects where accuracy is critical.

How Consistent Is Their Product?

If you order the same type of product from a vendor twice and it comes back formatted differently each time, that's a process problem. Inconsistent deliverables create extra work for your team because they have to figure out the format on every order instead of knowing what to expect.

Consistency is a function of how well-defined the vendor's production process is. A vendor with clear roles, standardized formatting, and a repeatable workflow delivers the same quality product on every order. A vendor where different team members handle the same work differently will produce variable results.

We've invested significantly in standardizing our production process so that every deliverable follows the same structure. Documents are organized chronologically, the index follows the same format, bookmarks correspond to the index in the same way. Clients who work with us regularly know exactly what they're going to receive before the product arrives.

What It Adds Up To

Price and turnaround time are the visible metrics. The factors that determine whether your abstracting partner actually saves you time and money over the life of a project are harder to see from the outside: scope definition, deliverable format, database depth, specialization, E&O coverage, and consistency.

When you evaluate these factors alongside price, the comparison between vendors often looks different than it does on a line-item basis. A vendor who costs slightly more on paper but delivers a complete, ready-to-use, verified, and insured product can save your team significant time and reduce your project risk in ways that a cheaper quote with none of those qualities cannot match.

We cover state and federal land records across New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas. When you're ready to talk about your next project, give us a call.