Frequently Asked Questions

A scout ticket is a historical field report compiled by a petroleum geologist or "scout" who physically monitored drilling activity across a basin. Before digital databases, companies employed scouts to record well data — formation tops, shows, depths, completion details, and initial production rates — as wells were being drilled. These documents represent ground-truth subsurface observations that cannot be replicated by modern reinterpretation. They are particularly valuable for understanding early wildcat activity, abandoned formations, and historical production benchmarks in your target acreage.

We're currently live in Texas, covering 24+ counties across the Permian Basin, Eagle Ford, Haynesville, Fort Worth, and East Texas basins. National expansion — including New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, and North Dakota — is on our roadmap. If you're working outside Texas now, contact us — we may be able to help.

Texas is our launch state — it has the deepest scout ticket archives, the most active RRC reporting, and the highest well density in the country, making it the ideal proving ground. We're actively building adapters for New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, and North Dakota. If your acreage is outside Texas, reach out — we'd love to hear about your target area.

Our primary sources are the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) — which maintains authoritative public records on well permits, completions, and production — the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) for basin-level statistics, the USGS for geologic data, and digitized historical scout ticket archives from Texas county repositories and private collections. Every data point is attributed to its source, and we track provenance from ingestion through to final output.

Our Texas RRC permit data is refreshed on a daily basis. Production data updates on the RRC's standard reporting cadence (typically monthly). Historical scout ticket data is static by nature but is continuously expanded as we process additional archives. Every dataset in our platform displays a "last updated" timestamp so you always know the freshness of the data you're working with.

A Prospect Assessment is a comprehensive intelligence report on your target acreage. It includes: historical scout ticket analysis (formation-by-formation breakdown), Texas RRC permit cross-reference, production history for the target zone, competitive operator activity map, an explainable area score from 1–100 with factor decomposition, and an executive summary with AI-generated narrative — fully cited to source data. Deliverables are provided as a structured PDF report with supporting data attachments.

Absolutely not. Transparency is a core commitment at ScoutTickets. Our area scores are computed from five weighted sub-factors: historical production density (25%), permit activity velocity (20%), formation quality score (25%), operator concentration (15%), and scout ticket signal strength (15%). Each sub-factor is documented, and every score you receive includes a full factor decomposition so you can see exactly what drove the result — and by how much. All scores are deterministic and reproducible.

Standard turnaround for a Prospect Assessment is 3–5 business days from submission. Complex or large acreage positions may require 7–10 business days. Rush delivery (24–48 hours) is available for an additional fee. We will confirm the timeline with you upon receiving your submission.

Consultations are typically 1–2 hour sessions conducted via video call (or in-person in Texas). You'll work directly with one of our senior exploration analysts. Common topics include: basin and play strategy review, data interpretation for a specific prospect, portfolio-level risk assessment, or technical deep-dives on formation-specific questions. We provide session notes and action items within 24 hours of the call.

Yes. All prospect submissions, acreage descriptions, and consultation materials are treated as strictly confidential. We do not share, sell, or reference client data in any public-facing materials. Our team operates under non-disclosure obligations, and we are happy to execute a mutual NDA prior to any engagement if required by your organization.

ScoutTickets serves a range of energy professionals: independent operators evaluating new acreage or de-risking before leasing; land teams building AMI strategies and understanding competitive activity; institutional investors conducting basin-level due diligence; geologists needing historical subsurface context for analog analysis; and financial advisors valuing upstream assets. If your work involves understanding Texas exploration history and current activity, ScoutTickets is built for you.