Is an overriding royalty interest lasting beyond the term of a lease-now-in-effect impossible to create? You saw the recent Texas Supreme Court opinion invalidating an anti-washout clause in TRO-X v. Anadarko Petroleum Corp....more
You’ve secured the right leases. You’ve drilled nice wells in the right locations. Now, will you pay the right royalty owners? Follow Devon Energy Production Company, L.P. v. Apache Corporation, to be sure that you do....more
What could go wrong when the well recovers two times its costs in nine months? Plenty, as we see in Dimock v. Sutherland Energy....more
Recall the Battle of the Bastards: The heroic Lady Sansa and the duplicitous Lord Baelish gallop over the hill to save the foolish Jon Snow from the heinous Ramsey Bolton. In similar fashion, but without the malnourished...more
4/9/2018
/ Ambiguous ,
Breach of Contract ,
ConocoPhillips ,
Contract Interpretation ,
Contract Terms ,
Energy Sector ,
Mineral Leases ,
Mineral Rights ,
Oil & Gas ,
Rule Against Perpetuities ,
TX Supreme Court
The ruling from the Supreme Court of Texas in JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., et al v. Orca Assets, G.P., L.L.C. was foreseeable. Experienced energy professionals who pass on the opportunity to examine title for themselves are...more
Proving once again that gratitude is the rarest of human emotions, a contract between a landman and his client was deemed unenforceable, leaving the landman with nothing, even though he actually secured oil and gas leases for...more
Anyone seeking stability in the law governing E&P activities in Louisiana will view the lower court decision as a grave error that must be corrected. Virtually every mortgage provides safeguards to protect collateral and...more
The Texas Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in three intriguing oil and gas cases. Here’s what you need to know about two of them (We’ll address the third case soon)....more
12/19/2017
/ Appeals ,
ConocoPhillips ,
Contract Interpretation ,
Contract Terms ,
Energy Sector ,
Land Titles ,
Mineral Leases ,
Mineral Rights ,
Oil & Gas ,
Rule Against Perpetuities ,
TX Supreme Court
In the spirit of Halloween, Le Norman Operating v. Chalker Energy Partners III is about a scary statute: The Texas Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, the UETA....more
How many times must an operator suffer for a mistake in a unit declaration? Samson Exploration LLC v. T. S. Reed Properties Inc. makes it twice. (See Hooks v. Samson Lone Star for the first round). The Texas Supreme Court...more
Subject-to, reservations-from, and exceptions-to problems have been lurking in the shadows of Texas jurisprudence for a while now, and the courts have been all over the map in recent holdings....more
We recently discussed Freeman v. Harleton. The opinion shows the transaction as a bunco job. Here’s more:
Bufkin and Wayne Freeman have done business together since the 1980s. They had a co-development agreement with...more
Enterprise Products Partners, L.P. et al v. Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. et al reversed one of the largest jury verdicts in Texas history. You will like this decision if...
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You are selling properties. The buyer thinks you own the deep rights but you know your long-time partner owns them. You attend the closing. You don’t tell the buyer that he’s got the ownership wrong. You are protected by a...more
We know that in Texas the mineral owner has the right to explore for and produce the minerals. What does that leave for the surface owner? In Lightning Oil Company v. Anadarko E&P Onshore, LLC the Texas Supreme Court tells us...more
You are a service company and you’ve been sued for a defective frac job. It looks scary but there’s no detail in the petition and no certificate of merit is attached. ...more