Ownership, privacy, and the limits of this page.

This website doesn't decide that. A possible license is defined in an agreement you review first: what is included, how it may be used, and what stays with the company. Nothing here is a transfer, and nothing moves before that review.

No. Black Gold Data doesn't buy operating records, mineral interests, or seismic. The company introduces an eligible business to a third-party fit check. Any license, if one is offered, is between your company and the provider you decide to proceed with.

No. This isn't a sale of mineral or royalty property, and it's not a place to market raw seismic data. It's a look at whether business records a company already keeps could be licensed.

Work the company created in the software it already uses. That can include customer emails, support chats, tickets, and follow-up in a desk such as Zendesk or Freshdesk, plus spreadsheets and databases, land-system notes, GIS layers, tract and lease maps, annotations, and spatial analysis the company produced, shared files, project and task history, team discussions, meeting records where recording was permitted, CRM notes, and the bookkeeping, reconciliations, and billing in its accounting software. In an oil and gas business that history often includes owner, landowner, customer, and vendor conversations, and how a lease was cured or an AFE moved. In a title practice it can show how an opinion was researched and reviewed, including maps the firm drew. The same standard can cover drilling and completion reports, well tests the company owns, production reviews, plant work, pipeline files, offshore coordination, and right-of-way tracking. A licensed base map or third-party dataset under that work is separate. The examples are illustrations, not a list of files you must hand over, and not a list of connected products. A ticket or a map isn't automatically eligible, and not every company keeps a GIS.

Many oil and gas records are touched by someone else's rights. A joint operating agreement, a client's engagement, a vendor contract, or a confidentiality clause can keep a file out. Sensitive personnel, safety, and critical infrastructure details aren't automatically licensable. A third party's well test or dataset stays out unless the company owns it and is permitted to include it. Those limits are reviewed before anything is transferred. Interest in a license doesn't erase them.

Yes. Scope is a choice. Systems, date ranges, record types, and whole categories can be left out. Discussing a description of your records isn't permission to take them.

They can be described when the company created the record and is allowed to discuss it. The examples are daily drilling and completion reports, operational troubleshooting, crew and vendor handoffs, well-test results the company owns, production reviews, maintenance, plant planning and QA, pipeline inspections and incident files, offshore logistics and coordination, and right-of-way negotiations, tract tracking, and company-created GIS. A third party's test or dataset is excluded. Sensitive personnel, safety, and critical infrastructure information isn't automatically licensable. Landowner personal information and client confidentiality still require review. A rig crew, offshore crew, or other field headcount doesn't qualify the company. Office workflows, the software history, and the rights around the file still control. Nothing on this page states a value.

Not by the login. Those names are examples of where a company may have created support tickets, task history, team discussions, or its own books. A subscription doesn't make every ticket, message, board, or ledger yours. Meeting recordings are in view only where recording was permitted. Client material and confidentiality are reviewed before anything is included, and the provider confirms fit.

The intent of this kind of license is a private arrangement, not a public release of a company's files. Confidentiality, who may see a copy, and whether it can be shared onward belong in the agreement. Read that section with counsel before you sign. This site can't promise that every risk is closed.

Names, email addresses, phone numbers, and account numbers are part of what a careful scope tries to keep out of a training copy, by removal or by replacement, as the agreement requires. That work is contractual and operational. It's not a switch this website throws, and it's not offered as zero-risk protection of personal information or intellectual property.

No. Stripping a name, redacting a caption, or substituting a fictional one doesn't by itself end attorney-client privilege, work-product protection, or a duty of confidentiality. A firm decides what it owns and what it's free to license. Anonymization isn't that decision.

They're a full part of the audience. Dan Smedstad has worked leases and title beside these attorneys for more than 35 years, across 12 states. A title practice isn't a fallback category. Law firms in other practice areas may qualify too. Fit is still confirmed by the provider, and privilege and confidentiality aren't waived.

It may. The oil and gas title-opinion page is the practice Dan knows from that industry. A firm in another practice area can be reviewed on the same terms: documented office work, several years of usable history, and the provider's own requirements. A firm isn't automatically in, and client confidentiality and privilege still have to be respected.

A firm can look at research trails, review notes, curative collaboration, templates it owns, maps and annotations it created, and the everyday work around them in its own email, files, land system, project board, team chat, and accounting software, where it has the right. Client matter files, another firm's work, a licensed base map, and anything an engagement letter or ethics duty holds back stay out until the firm has a clear right. Smaller specialist firms may warrant individual review. Fit is confirmed by the provider. A small firm isn't described here as meeting a threshold written for a larger operating company.

No single headcount on this site decides anything. Established businesses with documented office workflows and several years of usable history are the profile. Requirements vary by provider, sector, and dataset. One number presented as if it covered every operator, royalty company, accounting firm, and law firm would blur those differences.

Field crews — rig hands, roustabouts, pumpers, offshore crews, and other field staff — aren't the qualifying desk count, even at the same company. A drilling or offshore headcount doesn't qualify the company. The records in view come from office work: attorneys, paralegals, landmen, engineers, accountants, lease analysts, administrators, and the coordinators who document plant, pipeline, offshore, or right-of-way work at a desk. Office workflows, the software the company uses, and the rights around the file still control. Whether a contractor counts depends on the provider and on how the work is documented. Contractors aren't banned as a class, and they aren't automatically included.

This site doesn't state an amount or a date. If a company accepts an offer, payment follows the agreement it actually signs. A timeline mentioned during a fit check is that provider's description, not a promise from Black Gold Data, and it's not owed because someone started a conversation.

EBITDA means earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. In the usual bridge it starts from net income and adds those four items back. It's not cash in the account, and it's not the sale price of a company. A licensing receipt isn't automatically EBITDA. Any contribution is what remains after the costs of pursuing and performing the license, and only if the accounting records it that way. Your CPA makes that call. Adjusted EBITDA, and a valuation built on it, can leave out a receipt the reader treats as non-recurring. That's not an automatic increase in a multiple. Paying down debt can be a sensible use of cash. It doesn't, by itself, increase EBITDA: interest is already outside EBITDA, and principal repayment isn't an earnings add-back.

Reading this site and continuing to the fit check has no fee charged here. Any commercial terms belong in an agreement you review before you commit. Exploring fit doesn't promise an offer or a payment.

No. This site doesn't ask for raw files, passwords, client examples, or exports. There's no upload and no form that pretends to send them. The fit check starts from a description of the company and its records.

The fit check is run by a third party at historypays.com. Black Gold Data doesn't operate that check. The button leaves this site for that form.

Black Gold Data may receive a referral commission if a company introduced through this site completes a qualifying transaction. The amount isn't stated here. It's not a charge to use this website, and it doesn't replace your own review of any agreement.