The Texas State Securities Board has set a hearing for Jan. 22 regarding an emergency order alleging fraud by Michael E. Patman and Woodland Resources LLC in selling working interests in oil well-drilling projects.
Patman lists addresses in Fort Worth and Bogota, Colombia.
Texas Securities Commissioner Travis J. Iles on July 10 entered an Emergency Cease and Desist Order to stop the ongoing fundraising efforts of Patman, the director of operations for Fort Worth-based Woodland Resources, and two other company principals, Jeremy “JB” Yowell and Brett Kroh.
Yowell and Kroh are cooperating with the Enforcement Division of the State Securities Board in its investigation of Patman and Woodland Resources, according to the Austin-based agency.
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In soliciting Texans for investments in oil wells promising annualized returns of up to 70%, Patman has touted his decades of earning profits for investors through oil and gas drilling programs, according to the TSC. .
“Patman’s public record, however, shows a gusher of debt and a long trail of misleading investors,” the agency said in a July news release. Patman led two companies that went into bankruptcy and he owed millions of dollars to investors who successfully sued him for fraud. In addition, Texas and other state securities regulators have accused him of illegally offering investments tied to oil and gas programs.
According to the emergency action issued in July, Woodland was sending unsolicited emails to Texas residents offering investments in an offset well in producing oil wells in Seminole County, Oklahoma. Woodland is selling working interests in direct drilling offsets of a nearby well called Oddfellows A-1.
Woodland Resources claimed the Oddfellows well produced between 38 and 40 barrels of oil per day as of October 2018, but production records show that in the one-year period ended April 2019, Oddfellows produced an average of 19.7 barrels per day, or one-half of Woodland’s claimed total.
Woodland Resources and its principals, according to the order, are telling potential investors that the company is positioned to become a major independent player in the domestic and international oil and gas industry.
For more information:
www.ssb.texas.gov/sites/default/files/Patman_Woodland_SOAH_NOH.PDF
