You'll probably never meet them, see them or hear them.

But they're out there, and oil and gas producers - and firms in several other industries - couldn't do business without them.

They're landmen, and large and small petroleum producers alike depend on them to secure mineral rights, buy and sell oil and gas properties, or look after many other negotiations and details.

The landmen, who include women, do their work before explorers and drillers can do theirs.

Larry MacDougal, Business Edge
Scott Nalder of Greyhawke Resources says landmen need to be nimble as regulations change.

With regulations rapidly changing and companies merging, disappearing and joint-venturing, a landman's life is one of constant adaptation, says Scott Nalder, land manager for Calgary-based Greyhawke Resources Ltd.

"Every change that happens from the regulations point of view changes the way we do business," says Nalder, who has been a landman since 1976.

On any given day, an oil and gas executive will tell you that property acquisitions and sales have become increasingly complex because of environmental regulations and concerns, First Nations issues, other provincial and federal rules, community concerns and "Not In My Backyard" NIMBYism - not necessarily in that order.

Nalder suggests many concerns over land access and acquisitions can be conquered through effective negotiations. He says he strives to negotiate deals in which all parties are happy over the long term.

Pipeline and power companies also rely on landmen to help set up future energy and electricity-transmission routes. Firms in other sectors include mining and telecommunications, whose needs include getting access to properties on which they can install cellphone towers.

Governments also seek their help when plotting new roads and other infrastructure.

Landmen may soon play a greater role in power-project development in British Columbia and Ontario, because the provinces will require transmission routes to be confirmed before approvals for new facilities are granted.

Jan Carr, CEO of the Ontario Power Authority, says the high price of land, community concerns and NIMBYism all pose major concerns.

"They're big challenges - absolutely - but that doesn't relate to whether you're (building an electrical facility) first or second (after transmission routes are determined)," says Carr. "It's a challenge either way. You just have to work with it and manage the situation."

Brian Gabel, vice-president of corporate services and chief financial officer with the British Columbia Transmission Corp., agrees many communities seem to have a natural opposition to pipelines, transmission towers and other infrastructure.

"Whatever it is, people don't tend to want to have them right there," says Gabel.

Even projects planned over existing rights of way and easements can be challenging, he says.

As a result, project developers must have a multi-planning and consultation process to convince communities that projects are necessary to meet energy needs.

"Probably, nobody will be 100 per cent happy with whatever you say," says Gabel. "But you can achieve the maximum satisfaction by at least engaging everybody in the discussion and understanding what the issues are."

Ian Clark, president of Calgary-based Canadian Association of Professional Landmen (CAPL), says landmen have developed strategies to appease people opposed to projects. "Usually, most of the bigger companies have community-relations departments that help them deal with those types of circumstances," says Clark. "In my experience, it's an education issue, not so much an outright difficulty issue.

"If you inform them accurately on what you're planning on doing, sometimes - most cases, in my experience - it alleviates their concerns. When you have someone who is dead set against you doing whatever it is you want to do, no matter what information you provide them, well, then you have alternate means of trying to resolve that situation. You could go to arbitration, or (the solution) could be some other means through the regulators to achieve an amicable outcome."

The deals Greyhawke's Nalder remembers most are those that had the most challenging and difficult circumstances going in - but in the end, still satisfied all parties.

His job with the junior exploration firm involves taking the first steps toward an eventual drilling program on a given site.

"I'm only, generally, involved in the mineral side of things - not so much in the surface side of the job, dealing with farmers and wellsites and that," says Nalder, who is also a treasurer for the CAPL.

"On the minerals side, it's almost always the same thing - trying to bid more, or just barely more, than someone else is going to bid at land sales or, similarly, when you go around and talk with people who own their own mineral rights, trying to get to them at a time and in a way (that) they want to lease to you rather than someone else."

"Land sales" refer to the sale of mineral rights at provincial auctions. The rights allow a company to drill in a given area, but it must still negotiate surface rights - essentially access to the property - from the landowner and ensure that all other regulatory requirements are met.

Usually, it's up to another landman to work out surface rights.

Most landmen tend to specialize now, says CAPL's Clark. "They tend to be either company-to-company negotiators, which we call minerals landmen, or they tend to be company-to-surface-landowner negotiators and facilitators, and those are surface landmen."

In his day job, Clark is a manager of land and marketing with Calgary-based Seven Energy.

He works on exploration and production strategies, raising capital and enhancing the company's value by acquiring and selling oil and gas properties.

While some major producers employ several landmen, Clark is the sole landman at his junior firm.

"It's a small company I'm working for now, so I'm involved in every stage (of acquiring and selling)," says Clark.

For his part, Greyhawke's Nalder believes the biggest change in his industry occurred last fall after Ottawa's decision to change taxation rules surrounding royalty trusts.

The decision, which resulted in billions of dollars in market-capital reductions, means royalty trusts will be taxed like regular oil and gas firms and companies in other sectors.

Nalder says the royalty trust revisions, which also apply to trusts in other sectors, have destroyed the business plans of two-thirds of companies in the oil and gas industry. Before then, he says, the strategy was simple: Find an oil and gas property, sell it to a royalty trust and get more money to acquire another site.

Clark does not necessarily agree with Nalder's belief that changes to royalty trust rules have destroyed the marketplace.

"It depends on who you work for," says Clark. "If you're working for a trust, it has a major impact on you, because, probably, your expenditure levels for 2007 are down ... From my standpoint, I feel they are actually less competitive with our company, so it may actually free up some opportunities for our company to do business.

"For every company that spends less, there's typically another company that wants to come in and step into that fray."

(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)