Frontier Drilling, LLC v. XTO Energy, Inc. has the indicia of an inequitable result, but as I remind my wife every time she objects to what she deems to be an outrageous jury verdict, we don’t know all the facts and the court’s gotta follow the law, so let’s not judge.
The facts
Drilling
Landowner and mineral owner (that includes you, lessee): Under ETC Texas Pipeline, Ltd. v. Ageron Energy, LLC, your right to sue for damages for tort or trespass could pass into history before you even know you have a claim. Here’s why:
Under the legal-injury rule (more on that later), a property claim based on trespass
Antero Resources Corp. v. C & R Downhole Drilling, Inc. et al, proves again the extreme risk when one bites the hand that feeds him. Shoutout to Greek poet Sappho, 600 BCE.He She (oops) probably had a Dalmation. Antero sued former employee Kawsak and his accomplices Robertson and his companies for breach of
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 then pay attention to what really happens on the location, regardless of what the MSA says. (And good luck monitoring that
See yesterday’s post on Iskandia Operating, LLC v. SWEPI, LP
SWEPI’s motion for summary judgment alleged that Iskandia presented no evidence of one or more elements of its trespass claim, noting that the Supreme Court of Texas has never recognized a cause of action for trespass based on deep subsurface water migration (to which some
Iskandia Operating Inc. v. SWEPI, LP d/b/a Shell Western E & P reversed summary judgment for the defendant in a subsurface trespass claim involving injection of large amounts of produced water.
The facts
Iskandia produces oil from 100 wells across 5,000 acres from a shallow zone of the Delaware Mountain Group in the Dimmitt
Can the Texas lessee perpetuate his oil and gas lease by “constructive participation” in wells drilled by another? Under the facts in Cromwell v. Anadarko E&P Onshore, LLC, the answer is no.
Cromwell and Anadarko’s wells
In 2009 Cromwell obtained the Ferrer and Tantalo leases covering small fractional interests in several sections. Anadarko owned working
Unit Petroleum Company v. Koch Energy Services, LLC is another force majeure case arising out of winter storm Uri. Unlike a similar case, summary judgment was denied because, said the United States District Court,
The word “reasonable”, although not ambiguous, is a question of fact that must be answered by looking into the circumstances of
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 burdened by the 1967 Garner oil and gas lease. EOG has operated the lease since 1999 and its chief
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 “wellbore instability” on a well on an unrelated lease requires the lessee to effectively redrill portions of