News & Analysis as of

Mineral Exploration Contract Terms

Holland & Knight LLP

Oil and Gas Counterparty Risk: Dealing with Statutory Mineral Liens

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The legal frameworks governing statutory lien rights of oil and gas trade creditors vary significantly between Texas and Louisiana (as well as among other hydrocarbon-producing states). Material distinctions exist between...more

McGinnis Lochridge

Affirmative Defenses Are Insufficient to Rebut the Van Dyke Presumption

McGinnis Lochridge on

Under Van Dyke, deeds with double-fraction royalty reservations referencing “1/8” are presumed to reserve a floating royalty interest unless clearly contradicted. Defenses like waiver, ratification, and limitations cannot...more

Gray Reed

Is a Merger a “Transfer of Leases”?

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In Texas, no. Read on to learn why. In Nortex Minerals LP v. Blackbeard Operating LLC et al, the question was the meaning of this limited assignment provision in the “Alliance Leases”, oil and gas leases covering 27,000 acres...more

Gray Reed

Court of Appeals Rules on Texas PSA Well Permit

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The Austin Court of Appeals has ruled in Texas Railroad Commission et al v. Opiela, the dispute over a permit for a horizontal well under a Production Sharing Agreement.  We reported on the result in the trial court. Here are...more

BCLP

Recent decisions affecting US mineral and royalty owners

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While the unexpected and unpredictable commodity price swings over the last year have undoubtedly captured the attention of mineral and royalty owners across the United States, careful attention should also be paid to a few...more

Gray Reed

City of Dallas Owes $33+ Million for Drilling Permit Denials

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If you have ever wondered how many ways a cocktail of stupidity*, treachery and feckless government can inflict financial harm on the undeserving, including the citizens the feckless government leaders are supposed to serve,...more

Gray Reed

Texas Mineral Deed Signed Away Right to Sue

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The question in litigation is usually “WHAT”: what happened, what contract was breached, what did someone do or fail to do, and so on. In Hughes v. CJM Resources, LP, the question was, “WHO” had the right to file the suit in...more

Gray Reed

Added Party Can’t Avoid Amended Master Service Agreement

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Let’s begin with a question: Master service agreements (“MSA’s” in the trade), once agreed upon, often remain in force for years. As time passes and circumstances change, the parties amend, sometimes losing sight of the...more

Holland & Knight LLP

ANM en Colombia fija condiciones para garantías en contratos AEM

Holland & Knight LLP on

La Agencia Nacional de Minería (ANM) en Colombia expidió la Resolución 588 de 2021 en la que estableció las condiciones de ejecución de las garantías precontractuales y contractuales que se deben otorgar tanto en el proceso...more

Houston Harbaugh, P.C.

Texas Appellate Court Rules that Lease Terminated Due to Twelve Months of Non-Production

Houston Harbaugh, P.C. on

The modern producing gas well is a sophisticated and complex piece of equipment. The basic well head itself consists of several meters, valves and other components, each of which is under constant stress and pressure. ...more

Gray Reed

What are “Drilling Operations”?

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As Humpty Dumpty would have said to Alice if he were Justice Dumpty of the Texas Supreme Court, the term means whatever the parties to an oil and gas lease say it means, neither more nor less. In Sundown Energy LP, et al. v....more

Hogan Lovells

Suspensions of federal and Indian oil and gas leases

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With storage pressure and pandemic-reduced demand driving oil prices into freefall, lessees of federal and Indian lands may consider turning to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) procedures...more

Gray Reed

Surrounding Circumstances Don’t Always Inform Deed Construction

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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

Jones Day

Oil and Gas Industry Update - Sabine Oil Not the Last Word on Treatment of Gathering Agreements in Bankruptcy

Jones Day on

In a leading precedent handed down in 2018—Sabine Oil & Gas Corp. v. Nordheim Eagle Ford Gathering, LLC (In re Sabine Oil & Gas Corp.), 734 Fed. Appx. 64 (2d Cir. May 25, 2018)—the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit...more

Gray Reed

Keeping Score in Midstream Dedications in Bankruptcy: Midstreams 2, Producers 1

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Ever since the Sabine Oil and Gas Corp. bankruptcy (the top of the first, If it were baseball), where a New York court construed Texas property law to hold that a gathering agreement was not a covenant running with the land,...more

King & Spalding

Bankruptcy Court Rules that Dedications Within Gathering Agreements "Run with the Land”

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On December 20, 2019, the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas in Alta Mesa Holdings, LP v. Kingfisher Midstream, LLC (In re Alta Mesa Resources, Inc.) held that dedications in gathering agreements create...more

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

A Sabine Alternative: Colorado Bankruptcy Court Holds Midstream Gathering Agreement Constitutes Covenant Running with the Land...

Dedication language is critical in determining whether a gathering agreement creates a covenant running with the land. Midstream companies now have a roadmap for ensuring that a debtor remains subject to a midstream...more

Gray Reed

Oil Field Services Gets Lump of Coal From Santa

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Our sympathies go out to those in the oilfield services industry in Texas—it looks like you got a lump of coal. In Mesa Southern CWS Acquisition v. Deep Energy Exploration Partners the Houston Court of Appeals upended the...more

Gray Reed

Wave Goodbye To Unenforcable Mineral Lien Waivers: The Houston Court Of Appeals Weighs In With Mesa V. Deep Energy

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The Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Houston recently issued an opinion that will have profound impacts on mineral liens and contractual provisions purporting to waive mineral liens. The question of whether or not a pre-work...more

Gray Reed

Midstream Dedications – Colorado Bankruptcy Court Levels the Playing Field

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Until Monarch Midstream v. Badlands Energy, midstream companies facing rejection of their contracts in a producer’s bankruptcy were left with Abraham Lincoln’s least favorite negotiating option: If the both law and the facts...more

Gray Reed

Industry Custom Does Not Supersede Contract Language

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In Barrow-Shaver Resources Company v. Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc the Supreme Court of Texas has held again, here in a consent-to-assign dispute, that a contract means what the words say, even if in negotiations a landman said...more

Gray Reed

The Difficulty of Enforcing an Unwritten Contract

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Imagine how much better off you would be if the contract you want to enforce had been reduced to writing. See West v. Quintanilla for what happens when it wasn’t....more

Gray Reed

Broad Settlement Discharges Mineral Liens

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When you prepare, review and/or sign settlement agreements you sometimes pay less attention than you should to the details of those “standard” releases! Acme Energy Services, d/b/a Big Dog Drilling v. Staley et al. says,...more

Gray Reed

A Lesson in Property Stipulations

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Marsha Ellison v. Three Rivers Acquisition, LLC, et al. reminds us what is required for an instrument to be a conveyance and what is required for a stipulation to be effective....more

Gray Reed

Original Louisiana Lessee Can’t Escape Liability

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Louisiana practitioners and their clients tend to know this particular point of Louisiana law, but it could surprise out-of-staters (known in their native habitat as “Texans”), so it’s worth a reminder...more

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