Many oil and gas leases across Pennsylvania allow the driller to divert and use volumes of raw gas to power and fuel production operations both on and off the leasehold. Is a driller obligated to pay a royalty on that volume...more
In Carl v. Hillcorp Energy the Supreme Court of Texas addressed the relationship between the lessee’s use of gas off-premises under a free-use clause and the lessor’s burden to share post-production costs (PPCs) under the...more
Freeeport-McMoRan Oil and Gas, LLC and Ovintiv USA Inc. v. 1776 Energy Partners LLC presented a recurring question faced by Texas oil and gas producers: When can proceeds of production be withheld by the operator without...more
Texas courts continue to address the “fixed or floating” non-participating royalty interest question. The El Paso Court of Appeals’ answer in Bridges v. Uhl et al. was floating, based on the language in that particular...more
The question in Kim R. Smith Logging Inc. v. Indigo Minerals LLC was whether a disgruntled Louisiana royalty owner sent its demand for unpaid royalties to the right party. It turns out that it did....more
Let’s begin with a quiz. Armour purchases non-recourse mortgage notes, becoming a lienholder in 99 oil and gas leases and 13 wells; fails to record the transfer documents in the real property records; assigns the leases to...more
Recall our recent post on Carl v. Hilcorp Energy Company from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas discussing the lessee’s royalty obligations on gas used off the premises in a market-value lease. See...more
The question is presented again but in a different format: In Texas is a lessee allowed to deduct post-production costs (PPC’s) from the lessor’s gas royalty? In Carl v. Hilcorp, the answer was “yes” based on the language in...more
It was jurisprudential Groundhog Day as the Supreme Court of Texas handed down Nettye Engler Energy v. Bluestone Natural Resources, another in a series of postproduction cost disputes, only two days after Puxsutawney Phil...more
This is another chapter in the long-running dispute between Eagle Oil & Gas Co. and. TRO-X, L.P. The litigation arises out of an agreement to acquire and sell oil and gas leases. Here, TRO-X alleges that Eagle failed to...more
Devon Energy Prod. Co., et al. v. Sheppard, et al is your kind of case if you are in search of: - A roadmap for slicing and dicing royalty calculations in myriad ways, - Pretty good summaries of the Supreme Court’s...more
Here we continue our discussion of the Texas Supreme Court’s opinion in Piranha Partners et al. v. Joe B. Neuhoff et al. determining that an assignment of an overriding royalty in minerals unambiguously conveyed the override...more
Confirming the obvious, in In re Etheridge a Texas court concluded that “personal effects,” in a last will and testament did not include mineral royalties. Let’s investigate how the case got this far....more
A number of recent structurings of investment-grade rated securitizations of oil and gas wells are sparking conversations in the U.S. upstream oil and gas industry about this relatively new structured finance product....more
The 2019 Texas legislature enacted a new Property Code Section 5.152 to protect mineral and royalty owners from a certain species of fraudulent transactions perpetrated on trusting and/or naïve and/or out of state mineral...more
In Texas losing a title dispute doesn’t mean you committed myriad heinous torts by asserting your rights in the first place. The test: Were you reasonable in bringing your colorable but not correct claim? So says Dorfman v. J...more
In 2016 Ridge contacted the McDaniels (Double Eagle’s predecessors) with an offer to “lease” their mineral interests in Winkler County. The McDaniels informed Ridge about a producing lease from 2004, and were assured that it...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
H.B. 4270 - Passed - March 10, 2018 - Signed by Governor - March 27, 2018 - Effective - June 8, 2018 - The Information Reporting and Payments to Owners bill (H.B. 4270) is a companion bill to the Cotenancy...more
Summary of H.B. 4268 - At its core, the Cotenancy Modernization and Majority Protection Act ("Act") is a revision to the relationship between cotenants owning "oil or natural gas and their constituents." The Act is...more
On March 5, 2018, the West Virginia Legislature completed legislative action on and passed House Bill 4268, known as the Cotenancy Modernization and Majority Protection Act. The bill will now be delivered to the Governor’s...more
On May 31, 2017, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals issued a significant opinion regarding the clarification of rights for non-participating royalty interest owners (“NPRI”). In the opinion Gastar Exploration, Inc. v....more