Herein, highlights from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Briggs, et al. v. Southwestern Energy Production Company. The rule of capture applies to oil and gas produced from wells completed using hydraulic fracturing and...more
1/28/2020
/ Adjacent Property Owners ,
Fracking ,
Natural Resources ,
Oil & Gas ,
PA Supreme Court ,
Popular ,
Property Owners ,
Real Estate Market ,
Rule of Capture ,
Summary Judgment ,
Trespass ,
Well Drilling
Yet another entry in the Strip and Gore universe (2012’s “Beware of Strips and Gores”, and 2019’s “Strip and Gore 2: The Sequel”) comes to us from Fort Worth Court of Appeals: Richard D. Crawford v. XTO Energy, Inc....more
1/21/2020
/ Appeals ,
Energy Exploration ,
Grantors ,
Ingress/Egress ,
Land Titles ,
Mineral Leases ,
Mineral Rights ,
Oil & Gas ,
Real Estate Market ,
Transfer of Rights ,
Well Drilling
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
12/31/2019
/ Contract Terms ,
Liens ,
Master Service Agreement ,
Mineral Exploration ,
Mineral Leases ,
Minerals ,
Oil & Gas ,
Public Policy ,
Void and Unenforceable ,
Waiver of Rights ,
Waivers ,
Well Drilling
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
9/19/2019
/ Abandonment ,
Business Operations ,
Contract Terms ,
Forfeiture ,
Lease Termination ,
Mineral Extraction ,
Mineral Leases ,
Mineral Rights ,
Oil & Gas ,
Ongoing Operations ,
Rules of Construction ,
Well Drilling
In Town of Flower Mound v. Eagle Ridge Operating LLC, an operator’s injunction against enforcement of a local ordinance was dissolved. EagleRidge operates gas wells in the Flower Mound. A Town ordinance prohibits work on gas...more
9/12/2019
/ Appeals ,
Injunctions ,
Local Ordinance ,
Mineral Exploration ,
Mineral Extraction ,
Motion to Dissolve ,
Motion To Enjoin ,
Real Estate Market ,
Variances ,
Water ,
Well Drilling
How long – if ever – has it been since you pondered the difference between a “tenancy in common” and a “joint tenancy”? Same for us, until the wheels came off a family relationship and a lawsuit was filed in Wagenschein v....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
Speedier than Jesse Owens in the ‘36 Olympics, Democrats railroaded the Colorado legislature passed, by party-line vote, Senate Bill 181, a new law that will have a profound effect on oil and gas operations in that state. It...more
4/9/2019
/ Climate Change ,
Energy Exploration ,
Energy Policy ,
Green New Deal ,
Mineral Extraction ,
Mineral Rights ,
Oil & Gas ,
Public Health ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Burden ,
Rulemaking Process ,
State and Local Government ,
Well Drilling
In another dispute over insurance coverage related to the Macondo Well blowout (a/k/a Deep Water Horizon incident),1 the Texas Supreme Court held that an endorsement reducing a policy’s limits for “liability” stemming from a...more
2/6/2019
/ BP ,
Duty to Defend ,
Indemnification ,
Insurance Claims ,
Insurance Litigation ,
Joint Venture ,
Liability ,
Oil & Gas ,
Policy Limits ,
Policy Terms ,
TX Supreme Court ,
Well Drilling
The Colorado oil and gas industry breathed a collective sigh of relief when the state Supreme Court announced its unanimous decision in Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission v. Martinez. ...more
In Frederick v. Allegheny Township Zoning Hearing Board, et al, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court affirmed a local zoning ordinance allowing oil and gas operations in all zoning districts in the Township as long as they...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
Briggs v. Southwestern Energy is another way to say “chaos” in Pennsylvania. The Superior Court ruled that fracking may constitute a trespass when subsurface frac-fluid and proppants cross boundary lines and extend into the...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
We are reminded in Claybar v. Samson Exploration that a court will (if it’s doing its job) enforce an agreement according to what it actually says, not by that which one party or the other would have liked it to say or...more
Let’s take a look at what President Trump has done for the oil industry in his first year (This is not about decorum, dossiers, tweets, or Oprah’s inauguration.) As in the past I refer to sources whose opinions and insights...more
1/16/2018
/ Bureau of Land Management ,
Carbon Emissions ,
Clean Power Plan ,
Coal Industry ,
Deregulation ,
Energy Sector ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Violations ,
Fracking Bans ,
Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) ,
Offshore Drilling ,
Oil & Gas ,
Pollution Control ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Regulatory Standards ,
Settlement ,
Trump Administration ,
Well Drilling
Once again we look back at the continuing cavalcade of crooks, criminals, miscreants and, to put it kindly, morons the less intellectually gifted, who met justice face-to-face in 2017. This year’s class includes a preacher,...more
1/2/2018
/ Criminal Conspiracy ,
Criminal Convictions ,
Criminal Investigations ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Energy Sector ,
Fraud ,
Insider Trading ,
Investment Fraud ,
Mail Fraud ,
Mexico ,
Mineral Exploration ,
Mineral Leases ,
Money Laundering ,
Nigeria ,
Oil & Gas ,
Ponzi Scheme ,
Power Plants ,
Renewable Energy ,
Scams ,
Securities Fraud ,
Tax Credits ,
Tax Fraud ,
Well Drilling ,
Wire Fraud
Let’s suppose that someone (You? The other guy?) who operates wells in which others have an interest organizes the enterprise so that the owner of the leases, the owner of the overrides, the operator, several service...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
Lenders to Louisiana operators are likely to be reconsidering their business practices in light of Gloria’s Ranch v. Tauren et al.
A rather ordinary lease termination suit resulted in the lender Wells Fargo being...more
There’s no better place in the oil patch to play the blame game than 10,000 feet of leaky wellbore.
What went wrong?
In Justiss v. Oil Country Tubular Corporation, Justiss, a drilling contractor, entered into an IADC...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
Trigger warning for Texas readers: This entry will discuss forced pooling. You may now retreat to your “safe space”, where “no guvment-sumbitch-bureaucrat can conspire with [name of large oil company] to steal my stripper...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
We begin with an existential question:
“The philosophy behind all of the model form agreements is that aggressive drilling under the JOA should be promoted and rewarded.
Agree or disagree?
...more