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Charles Sartain

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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 solidarily liable with the lessees for $22.8 million in lost leasing opportunities, $242,000 in unpaid royalties, $484,000 in statutory damages, and almost $1 million in attorneys’ fees.

Here’s why:
Continue Reading A New Day for Louisiana Oil and Gas Lenders?

Noble Energy Inc. v. ConocoPhillips Company, a 6-to-3 Texas Supreme Court decision, is a reminder of two things:

  • How parties to a property transaction describe what’s being acquired and what’s being left behind can have grave consequences. The purchaser can acquire specific obligations associated with purchased assets, excluding all others not mentioned. Or, he can acquire all obligations, disclaiming none, including those not even mentioned and those he doesn’t even know about. Here, the difference cost Noble $63 million.
  •  When given a choice, the Texas Supreme Court is likely to resolve a dispute by relying on the words in a contract rather than notions of equity.

Continue Reading Texas Supreme Court Dabbles in Bankruptcy Law

Co-author Chance Decker

“The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules”. The Joker to Batman, The Dark Knight

Subject-to, reservations-from, and exceptions-to problems have been lurking in the shadows of Texas jurisprudence for a while now, and the courts have been all over the map in recent holdings (Title nerd and proud of it? Compare this example with this one.)

In Wenske v. Ealy, the Supreme Court channeled our superhero’s painted friend, essentially jettisoning the old rules and confirming the new rule in deed construction cases: There are no “rules”. 
Continue Reading Does Texas Have a New “Rule” in Conveyancing?

Co-author Sheena Shaghaghi

Benjamin Franklin would be relieved. Just when it seems that the taxman always wins, he doesn’t.  In CGG Americas, Inc. v. Commissioner the U. S. Tax Court concluded that a taxpayer need not own underlying hydrocarbons in order to take a deduction for geological and geophysical expenses. Counterintuitive, you say? Read on.

Continue Reading Seismic Expenses are Deductible for the Seismic Shooter

Co-author Chance Decker

We recently discussed Freeman v. Harleton. The opinion shows the transaction as a bunco job. Here’s more:

  • Bufkin and Wayne Freeman have done business together since the 1980s. They had a co-development agreement with Harleton.
  • Long-standing agreements among the three of them made it clear that Harleton owned 50 percent of the Geisler Unit.
  • Chesapeake never talked to the Freeman defendants, who were not parties to the letter agreement for the sale.
  • Chesapeake didn’t contract non-ops because Chesapeake believed the letter agreement prevented them from doing so.
  • Bufkin would bring non-ops to each closing, and they would receive offers to sell on the same terms as Buffco.
  • Wayne Freeman, who attended his closing, knew Harleton’s ownership interest in the unit but did not raise the issue because, ”It did not occur to him to do so.” He said “[I]t was Chesapeake’s obligation to figure out who owned what” in the unit.
  • As a non-op and non-signatory Freeman never made representations or warranties.
  • To Chesapeake it became obvious that Bufkin had known when he closed that the ownership in the Geisler Unit was different than what he said it was.
  • The due-diligence landman’s work was entirely from Buffco/Twin files. He didn’t check the county records because he was told by Bufkin and team that his title determination was correct.
  • The landman came to believe that Buffco removed materials from files that would have revealed Harleton’s interest in the deep rights.
  • See the opinion for federal Judge Gilstrap’s view of the defendants’ activities. it was adopted by the state court trial judge.

Continue Reading An Oil Patch Morality Play – Part 2

Co-author Chance Decker

Enterprise Products Partners, L.P. et al v. Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. et al reversed one of the largest jury verdicts in Texas history.  You will like this decision if:

  • You believe a party has the right to rely on the sanctity of a written contract.
  • You believe that it is proper for a court to be guided by “law and equity”.

You will not like it if:

  • You favor “partnership by ambush”, as one of Enterprise’s lawyers put it.
  • You regret that pesky pleading rules and required jury findings take the “Wild West” out of jury trials.

Continue Reading Pipeline Partnership Verdict Reversed

Co-author Chance Decker

You are selling properties. The buyer thinks you own the deep rights but you know your long-time partner owns them. You attend the closing. You don’t tell the buyer that he’s got the ownership wrong. You are protected by a contract. Do you fess up? What if it means $6.8 million?

In Freeman, et al v. Harleton Oil & Gas Chesapeake agreed to buy three-year term assignments of Buffco’s and Twin Eagle Resources’ interest in 14,000 acres in East Texas for $232 million.
Continue Reading An Oil Patch Morality Play – Part 1

Suggestions to Texas lessors after ExxonMobil v. Lazy R Ranch, et al:  Claiming that you were not aware of contamination from oil spills you’ve known about for 20 years is a tough sell, and suing your long-time lessee for millions right after it sells your lease looks a wee bit opportunistic.

For nearly 60 years Exxon operated wells on the 20,000 acre Lazy R Ranch before selling the lease in 2008. The Ranch hired an environmental engineer who identified a total of 1.2 acres in four areas where hydrocarbon contamination exceeded levels set by state law.

In 2009 the Ranch sued Exxon for contamination and sought damages for remediation of the 1.2 acres that would cost $6.3 million. (At least they waited to bite until the hand was no longer dispensing the groceries).

The damage claim presented a problem for the Ranch. Under Texas law the recovery for damages for a permanent injury to real property is generally limited to the difference in value of the property before and after the injury.
Continue Reading Another Oil Field Contamination Plaintiff Waits Too Long

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 model turnkey drilling contract for a well in Beauregard Parish. The contract specified 12,500 feet of intermediate casing to be LTC pipe with buttress threads. The contract depth was 15,000 feet. Justiss purchased the casing from OCTC.

The operation was star-crossed. Justiss discovered a hole in the surface casing, which it repaired by cementing the casing in place. This made it impossible to remove the intermediate casing string when things got bad. Beginning at 3,500 feet the casing wouldn’t maintain adequate pressure and Justiss performed 13 squeeze jobs in an effort to remedy the problem. These and other efforts to fix the leaks lasted five weeks and cost millions of dollars.  At 13,596 feet the casing would not maintain pressure and, for fear of losing well control, the operation was terminated.

Read this if you sell a product or a service
Continue Reading Blame Game Fails Louisiana Casing Vendor