Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Landman:’ Great Drama, But Not Exactly Reality

Is Tommy Norris, the lead character portrayed by Billy Bob Thornton in Taylor Sheridan’s runaway hit television drama, “Landman,” really a landman as the oil and gas industry has traditionally defined the role? It’s a question many in the industry and among those who, like me, write and talk about it have asked and tried to answer in the months during and after the show’s breakout first season.

I laid out my views on the show and its’ relationship to reality in a story here last December, based on experience gained from more than 40 years in the industry. But my various job titles never included “landman” in them, and, with chatter about the show building again as Sheridan and cast conduct shooting in various Texas locations for the show’s Season 2 – set to debut this fall – it seemed prudent to seek out insights from someone who actually does the job.

Let’s Ask a Real Landman – Who Happens to be a Woman

“At Chevron, I’m responsible for land operations in the Permian and the Rockies,” Kelly Coppins, ***et development land manager at Chevron, told me in a recent interview. “Within my scope, I’m responsible for both surface and subsurface. And you do get a glimpse of both aspects of that in the TV show.” (Note to readers: Though she is obviously a woman, Coppins and other women in the role are still properly called “landman.” It is a specific job title in the industry, not a gender-specific description.)

But what about that opening scene of the show’s first episode, which features Tommy Norris tied to a chair and being beaten to a pulp by members of a Mexican drug cartel? It turns out the drug lord also happens to be a landowner who isn’t quite happy with the damages deal he’d entered into with M-Tex Oil, the fictional company where Norris works. Has Coppins ever been involved in any remotely similar incident, or heard of anyone who has?

“I can honestly say it’s not something that has happened in my tenure, and I’m glad to say that,” she says with a chuckle. “We do deal with things like snakes and contentious situations, of course. Our surface landmen are critical to our ability to conduct operations. A lot of them own and have experience with ranches, so they can relate and advocate for the surface owner. So, for that reason, they drive the ship on identifying surface locations and challenges we’re going to encounter, and they make insurmountable issues visible during decision-making so that we don’t end up in a bad situation.”

Is ‘Landman’ Really About Tommy Norris?

One theory which grew in popularity as the show’s plot developed is that the title doesn’t really refer to Tommy Norris – who most often appears to function more as a vice president of drilling and operations – but to his son, Cooper Norris, played by Arkansas-born Jacob Lofland. As season one progressed it became clear that Cooper not only wants to become a landman but also aspires to parlay the experience and relationships built while doing that job into ultimately owning a company of his own.

When I posed that question to Coppins, she said she shares that theory, pointing out that the character is seen performing traditional surface-related tasks like building relationships with landowners and putting together deals for contiguous land parcels. She notes that those functions have been core functions at Chevron and other shale operators in recent years as horizontal well laterals have expanded to two miles or more in length.

What a Landman Really Does

To explain the significance of the landman’s role, Coppins pointed out Chevron’s mineral position dates back to the 19th century from a federal charter to build a trans-Pacific railway. This history led to Chevron’s checkerboard mineral fee across West Texas. Thanks to the work of landmen, Chevron now has a contiguous acreage position that enables them to drill those long horizontals. Today, Chevron has a working interest in 1 of 5 Permian wells across 2.1 million acres and generates higher revenue per acre due to its royalty advantage and acquisition of acreage at substantially lower costs.

When asked to tick off some of the other typical roles surface landmen like Cooper Norris would fill at a typical shale company in the Permian region, Coppins had a long list. “Those men and women are trusted liaisons with their boots on the ground,” she begins. “They build long relationships with landowners. And then in the office, we’re negotiating high stakes deals for mineral rights that can make or break the economics of a project we’re working on. As an example, you see title work in that opening scene, when Tommy Norris talks about the predecessors and interests, and that’s very common to what we do.”

On the show, she notes, we also watch Tommy Norris performing several other common landman roles. “He does site prep and gives his expertise and knowledge on field locations, challenges, barriers. He talks through the cost of fencing a property, of securing the property, of ensuring road access, and then, of course, you hear the acquisition considerations and negotiations through those phone calls with Monty.” That is a reference to the character Monty Miller, played on the show by Texas-born actor Jon Hamm.

A particularly interesting takeaway from the conversation with Coppins is the way in which the roles of in-house landmen and their managers at Chevron and some other companies have been expanded in the 21^st century. Forty years ago, the role of an in-house landman at any company focused almost exclusively on title work, lease-related negotiations, and other surface-related activities.

Today, Coppins and her team must balance securing the subsurface mineral rights to drill for oil and natural gas with the needs of surface landowners and environmental protection. That’s a significant expansion of the job’s scope in recent years, one that requires an expanded scope of expertise.

All of which points to the reality that Coppins is in charge of managing a big piece of Chevron’s land operations in the Permian Basin, which straddles Texas and New Mexico, and in the DJ Basin in Colorado. Chevron ranks as one of the biggest leaseholders and producers in both regions, so it is a high-impact and high-visibility department within the organization. The company is on track to reach and sustain over 1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in the Permian alone over the next decade.

Why ‘Landman’ is a Groundbreaking Portrayal of the Industry

Coppins agrees that everyone involved with “Landman” has done a fine job of realistically capturing many aspects of the industry’s role in the Permian basin, as well as the general landscape, culture and overall feel of what life is like in the Midland area. But she finds that the show misses the boat in the area of safety. As I pointed out in my piece last December, the show dramatized three major negative safety events – including a major well blowout and fire – which at least 7 workers were killed and others severely injured.

“It was jaw-dropping to me to see those scenes,” she says. “In my mind, it’s what I picture from quite a long time ago, when it really was the wild, wild west out there. The industry has come so far from what’s depicted in the show. Safety and environmental protections are the top priority, a huge focus area for Chevron, and I know it’s true for our competitors too. All of us want to maintain our license to operate and if we have incidents like that every day, we’re not able to operate smoothly and be able to deliver what we’re promising.”

But, of course, from Sheridan’s perspective as the show’s producer and writer, all that high drama and danger helps with the ratings, so it’s hard to blame him. And to be fair, Coppins agrees with my own view that “Landman” is groundbreaking in that it is the first show centered on the oil and gas business that portrays an overall positive depiction of the oil and gas business.

“Landman” gets some things wrong, but it also gets many things about the job of a real landman right. For an industry which has long been treated by the television and film industries as a dirty, dangerous business run by unethical, cartoon-ish villains like J.R. Ewing, such a balanced portrayal is a welcome change, indeed.