In WMH Farms v. Apache Corporation the Third Circuit Court of Appeal reversed summary judgment in favor of plaintiff/landowner WMH against lessee JP Oil and dismissed JP’s third-party demand against Walter Oil and Gas.
Then the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed the court of appeal, reinstated the summary judgment, and remanded. We will report on the
In Zarvona Energy v. Black Stone Minerals Company, a Texas Court of Appeals reiterated that the cessation-of-production clause in an oil and gas lease cannot be read in absolute terms as a lessor might want it to be. The Court also grappled with ambiguities among four different provisions in the lease.
After reading Devon Energy Production Company, L.P. v. Oliver if you’ recall a similar post-production cost dispute, it was last week. And the result was the same. Royalties under this lease are to be calculated at the wellhead (where there are no PPC’s) and not on a downstream market price
Karli v. Wilson instructs mineral/royalty traders and their scriveners on a surefire way to create title chaos out of what could have been an uncomplicated land transaction. In 1950 the Wilson siblings and spouses executed a warranty deed to the Veterans Land Board for 196.7 acres in Brazos County, Texas. The Karlis now own
For an example of a case gone wrong in so many ways, look no further than Evans Resources LP et al v. Diamondback E & P.
The facts
There were three agreements between several Evans entities and Diamondback for Evans‘ 651 acres in Midland County, Texas: An oil and gas lease allowing pooling with
In Byrne Oil Co. v. Walraven, a court of appeals held that a surface owner/lessor cannot bury his lessee’s pipelines and recover costs when adequate time exists to pursue judicial remedies, even after years of operator delay.
The oil and gas lease required the lessee to “bury pipeline[s] below plow depth”
The Texas Supreme Court in Roxo Energy Company, LLC v. Baxsto, LLC reinforced a fundamental contract principle: when fully integrated agreements plainly conflict with prior oral representations, reliance on those inconsistent prior oral statements is unjustifiable as a matter of law. In other words, a party to a contract cannot justifiably rely
In Cactus Water v. COG Operating, the Supreme Court affirmed that mineral lessee COG, not water rights owner Cactus (who derived it rights from the surface owner), has the right to possession, custody, control, and disposition of constituent water in liquid waste – so-called produced water – from its hydrocarbon production.
In Williams O & G Resources, LLC v. Diamondback Energy, Inc., a federal magistrate judge concluded that the Texas Relinquishment Act does not apply to public-school lands patented after 1931. The report and recommendation was adopted by the district court.
The facts
Williams’ predecessor-in-interest acquired a tract of public land from
In In re Pearl Resources LLC, a Houston bankruptcy court rejected the Texas General Land Office’s attempt to partially terminate state oil and gas leases in Pecos County, despite finding the operator had breached offset well obligations.
The court describes the difference between “drilling operations” and “drilling”, explains when failure to