Supreme Court of Texas Washes Out the “Anadarko Washout”
If your co-tenant drills the well… does your lease still live? The Texas Supreme Court just tackled a high-stakes question that’s shaken up oil and gas titles across the state.
Producer’s Edge
TEXAS OIL AND GAS LAW BULLETIN
Get our email newsletter and unlock access to subscriber-only content and updates
Processing your application
Please check your inbox and click the link to confirm your subscription (check your spam).
There was an error sending the email
Get started with our featured articles
Who Owns the Empty Space? Texas Supreme Court Affirms Surface Ownership of Salt Caverns in Landmark Ruling
Who owns the void left behind after millions of tons of salt are mined - and can it be used for someone else’s storage business? The Texas Supreme Court just drew the line.
Plain Language Meets Common Sense: Hidden Traps in Oil Patch Contract Interpretation
What happens when a court reads your contract literally for one issue but decides what 'makes sense' for another? A geophysicist just found out.
Unclear Jury Instructions Allow for Various Interpretations
Lario Oil & Gas Co. v. Black Hawk Energy Services, Ltd. highlights the importance of carefully drafting jury instructions and questions.
Texas Business Court Weighs Jurisdiction over Out-of-State Property Interests
When can a Texas court rule on New Mexico property disputes? The answer hinges on whether the property interest is 'central' or just 'incidental' to the real fight.
Are Statute of Limitations Battles Becoming the New Frontline in Water Injection Cases?
When your neighbor's wastewater tanks your oil wells, when exactly can you sue? A Texas court wrestles with a timing question reshaping industry battles.
COPAS Accounting Procedures: Key Litigation Perspectives
To many oil and gas lawyers the COPAS accounting procedure is sometimes an afterthought. But, in the context of JOA disputes, whether or not directly involving accounting issues, the COPAS procedure can have a critical impacts.
Wyoming: Can Lessees Pool Overriding Royalty Interests?
There is a debate among Wyoming oil and gas attorneys, and I wanted to weigh in. Some (maybe even many) Wyoming lawyers believe an overriding royalty interest simply cannot be pooled in Wyoming without the owner's direct and express consent. Of course, this is only a debate in...
Legalese: Standard Interpretive Boilerplate
"Legalese Schmegalese." I first started reviewing contracts back in my days working with TIC Wyoming, Inc., a subsidiary of the Kiewitt Corporation, reviewing large scale heavy industrial construction contracts for construction jobs such as oil refineries, natural gas compressor stations, and coal mine facilities. I'll be...
Farmout Agreements: Key Decisions and Negotiation Points
Introduction As I stated in my Part One of my Farmout Agreement Series, farmout agreements can be somewhat less "straight-forward" than other common oil and gas agreements. Contracts, Leases, JOA's, for example, are each highly standardized and have one or more publishers of highly-adopted forms. Farmout...
Where the Use of Forms Goes Wrong
The Proliferation of Forms: The wide-spread use of forms in the oil and gas industry has created nothing short of a revolution in allowing land professionals to expedite the process of putting complex agreements in place. Additionally, this "forms culture" has dramatically helped to ensure excellent quality legal...
Mineral Liens: Collecting Unpaid Debt for Oilfield Service Companies
Purpose and Application of Mineral Liens Everyone in the construction industry is intimately familiar with the "Mechanic's Lien," which gives a security interest in the title to real property (and sometimes personal property) to those who have supplied materials or labor to improve the property. In...
Dirty Tricks & Cheap Moves in the Oilpatch
High risk, high reward. We in the oil and gas industry have been toughened; have been forced to learn to traverse the risk, and to reap the rewards. Heck, oil and gas exploration and production is practically as synonymous with the "American Dream" as we can get. The...
