In Self v. BPX Operating, a case with significant implications for Louisiana operators and royalty owners, the Supreme Court of Louisiana ruled that the doctrine of negotiorum gestio in La. Civil Code art. 2292 does not allow...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
Davenport v. EOG Resources, Inc. is an appeal of a temporary injunction. The title tells you the result.
Davenport owned four tracts comprising 5,000 acres in Webb County that were originally part of a larger tract...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
California has passed Senate Bill 1137, which will prohibit drilling of new oil and gas wells and reworking of existing wells in certain areas.
Here is SB 1137 in legislativese (analysis comes first, then the text)...more
7/19/2023
/ Ballot Measures ,
California ,
Energy Policy ,
Energy Reform ,
Infrastructure ,
Mineral Exploration ,
Mineral Extraction ,
Oil & Gas ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Well Drilling
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
Imagine these facts in a force majeure dispute (as presented in Point Energy Partners Permian LLC et al. v. MRC Permian Company).
Lessee (MRC) invokes the force majeure provision of an oil and gas lease, asserting that...more
5/10/2023
/ Civil Conspiracy ,
Constructive Trusts ,
Force Majeure Clause ,
Mineral Exploration ,
Mineral Extraction ,
Mineral Leases ,
Mineral Rights ,
Oil & Gas ,
Repudiation ,
Tortious Interference ,
Trespass ,
Well Drilling
The issue in QBE Syndicate 1036 v. Compass Minerals Louisiana, LLC was whether the scope of the Louisiana Oilfield Indemnification Act applies to operations involving salt mining?
QBE issued a commercial general...more
The Kingfish would be proud of the Louisiana Supreme Court in Louisiana Ex Rel Tureau v. BEPCO, L.P. et al. The issues were the prescriptive period applicable to a citizen suit for injunctive relief under R.S. 30:16 and...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
Does a former working-interest owner of a well bear continuing responsibility for a defective gas line despite having conveyed its ownership interest? The line was constructed by the former owner as operator of record, and it...more
4/28/2022
/ Appeals ,
Construction Defects ,
Liability ,
Mandamus Petitions ,
Mineral Extraction ,
Oil & Gas ,
Ownership Interest ,
Petroleum ,
Pipelines ,
Third-Party Relationships ,
TX Supreme Court ,
Well Drilling
The Texas Civil Practices and Remedies Code, Chapter 95, limits a property owner’s liability when an independent contractor hired to construct, repair, renovate or modify an improvement to the owner’s property brings a...more
The question with wide-ranging implications for Louisiana operators and mineral owners in Johnson et al. v. Chesapeake Louisiana LP et al is whether unleased mineral owners in a drilling unit established by the Commissioner...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
Ammonite Oil and Gas Corporation v. Railroad Commission of Texas illustrates the difficulties faced by lessees attempting to force-pool a tract under the Mineral Interest Pooling Act. In this case, the applicant Ammonite...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
What could possibly go wrong when drill pipe and a delivery ticket are sent to a well location? Well …
The facts -
In Knight Oil Tools v. Rippy Oil Company, Knight rented drill pipe to Rippy for an Eagle Ford well....more
2/22/2021
/ Breach of Warranty ,
Fitness for Particular Purpose ,
Implied Warranties ,
Indemnity ,
Jury Trial ,
Jury Verdicts ,
Negligent Misrepresentation ,
Oil & Gas ,
Product Defects ,
Unpaid Accounts ,
Vendors ,
Well Drilling
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
With the plunge in commodity prices many formerly profitable wells are now in the red, and we don’t know for how long. This is causing non-operators to question the bona fides of the operations … and of the operator, and to...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
The question in Cannisnia Plantation, LLC v. Cecil Blount Farms, LLC was whether a well was drilled in good faith in order to interrupt the running of prescription on a Louisiana mineral servitude....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
3/17/2020
/ Breach of Contract ,
Business Interruption ,
China ,
ConocoPhillips ,
Contract Drafting ,
Contract Terms ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Delay Claims ,
Emergency Management Plans ,
Force Majeure Clause ,
Foreign Commerce ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Infrastructure ,
Liability ,
Oil & Gas ,
Performance Standards ,
Public Health ,
Risk Management ,
Well Drilling
The concurrence and dissent in Briggs et al v. Southwestern Energy Production Company appears to be of little help to property owners complaining of trespass by fracking where there is no invasion of frack fluids on to the...more
1/30/2020
/ Adjacent Property Owners ,
Discovery ,
Fracking ,
Natural Resources ,
Oil & Gas ,
Pleading Standards ,
Property Owners ,
Real Estate Market ,
Rule of Capture ,
Summary Judgment ,
Trespass ,
Well Drilling