A Focus on Energy: M&A Trends in the Energy Sector
Let’s assume you own 165 acres in Tioga County. In 2019, you sign a new oil and gas lease with ABC Drilling. You negotiate an 18% net royalty. The royalty clause, however, requires ABC Drilling to calculate the royalty on...more
Parkman v. W&T Offshore, Inc., et al features two contractors playing hot potato over liability for a company man’s alleged negligence. The takeaway: Write your Master Service Agreement to address your liability concerns, and...more
The plain, ordinary, and generally accepted meaning of a word doesn’t mean “anything goes”. It depends on context, says the Supreme Court of Texas in Finley Resources Inc. v. Headington Royalty Inc., a dispute over the...more
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
And what a difference it was! In Apache Corp. v. Apollo Expl. LLC et al, Apache and others acquired an oil and gas lease on 100,000+ acres in the Texas Panhandle. The primary term was three years. The effective date was...more
An oil and gas lease with a “free gas” clause may be a valuable tool for landowners to push back against drillers’ inaccurate attempts to value gas at the “wellhead”. Prior to the advent of Marcellus Shale drilling, "free...more
On January 24, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania held that Act 85 of 2019, which permits drilling horizontal oil and gas wells across existing drilling units, is not unconstitutional....more
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
A subcontractor’s mineral lien in Texas is invalid when, at the time the mineral owner receives notice of the lien affidavit, the mineral owner is not yet obligated to pay the contract price to its contractor. So says Pearl...more
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
“To spud or not to spud,” that was the question before the Texas Supreme Court in determining whether a lessee, Sundown Energy, maintained a lease on non-producing acreage under the lease’s continuous drilling provisions.1...more
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
What is the standard of care imposed by the Model Form JOA on the well operator? Crimson Exploration Op., Inc. v. BPX Op. Co. gives us the answer, and it is no surprise....more
In Endeavor Energy Resources, L.P. v. Energen Resources Corp. et al. the Supreme Court of Texas construed a continuous development clause in an oil and gas lease covering 11,300 acres in Howard County. After the primary term,...more
From Great Western. Drilling, Ltd. v. Pathfinder Oil & Gas, Inc. we learn that if you want one agreement to be conditioned on execution of another one, you’d better say so … in writing … in the first one....more
Many oil and gas contracts – leases and JOAs for example – have force majeure clauses. The purpose is to allow contracting parties to suspend or terminate performance when certain circumstances arise that are beyond their...more
On February 28, 2020, the Texas Supreme Court reversed a ruling from the First Court of Appeals in Houston in the case of Chalker Energy Partners III, LLC, et al. v. Le Norman Operating LLC, 547 S.W.3d 27 (Tex. App.—Houston,...more
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
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
Quick answer: It depends on what the lease says. Last week featured a tug-of-war between a producer and the community in which it operates; this week in HJSA No. 3 LP v. Sundown Energy LP it’s the producer and the lessor....more
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
As promised, here is a more in-depth analysis of the recent Supreme Court of Texas opinion in TRO-X LP v. Anadarko Petroleum Corp. ...more
What does it take these days to get money from a Texas jury? Not much, it seems; in XTO v. Goodwin the trick was convincing a higher court that you should keep it....more
A United States District Court (Western District Oklahoma) addressed in an October 10th Order issues associated with a producing vertical well’s claim for damages related to another company’s subsequent installation of a...more
Here is what we believe is an unusual situation: A gas unit is formed. The gas well ceases to produce. Another gas well produces from an oil unit, but the lease at issue is not included in the oil unit. Is the lease...more