Oil and Gas Lawyer Blog

The staff of the Texas Railroad Commission has proposed to the Commision rules to implement House Bill 3328, passed by the last Legislature, requiring the disclosure of chemicals used in frac fluids. The rules will be subject to a period for public comment, and a hearing will be held on the rules, now proposed for Wednesday, October 5.

Earlier this year, the 82nd Texas Legislature passed HB 3328, requiring the RRC to adopt rules requiring disclosure of chemicals in frac fluids. The draft rule would require operators to disclose chemical content of frac fluids on FracFocus, a website developed by the Ground Water Protection Council and the Interestate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. (The website contains a lot of good information about hydraulic fracturing and its benefits and risks.)  FracFocus was launched on April 1, 2011. As of August 16, 2011, according to RRC staff, operators had registered 950 Texas wells on the website, including wells drilled by Anadarko, Chesapeake, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, Devon, El Paso, Energen, EOG, Forest, Newfield, Occidental, Penn Virginia, Petrohawk, Pioneer, Plains, Range, Rosetta, Shell, Williams, and XTO. You can search for a well near you by using FracFocus's search feature. An example of the information disclosed can be found here:  4243935364-3212011-10792272-CHESAPEAKE[1].pdf The disclosure includes the percentage by mass of each chemical used in the frac fluid.

Under the proposed rule, an operator must also provide the same information with its completion report for the well, as part of the completion report. The completion report for all Texas wells can also be found on the RRC's website.

RRC's staff's discussion of the proposed rule estimates that 13,000 wells undergo frac treatment in Texas each year -- 85% of all wells drilled in Texas.

A supplier, service company or operator is entitled under the draft rule to claim trade-secret protection for a chemical additive. If such protection is claimed, the particular chemical and its concentration need not be provided, but the operator must disclose the chemical family of the ingrediant and the properties and effects of the chemical. The claim of trade-secret protection may be challenged by the landowner on whose property the well is drilled or any adjacent landowner, or by any state department or agency with jurisdiction over issues related to health and safety. Any such challenge must be filed within 2 years after the claim of trade-secret protection was filed. If a challenge is filed (with the RRC), the RRC refers the matter to the Texas Attorney General who makes a determination, based on evidence submitted by the person claiming trade-secret protection, of whether the identity of the chemical is in fact a trade secret under Texas law. The AG's determination may be appealed to a state district court. If a trade-secret exemption is claimed, a health professional or emergency responder may still obtain the information but must keep it confidential except to the extent it must be disclosed to protect health and safety.

An operator who fails to disclose as required by the rule may have its operating permit revoked.

Continue reading "Texas Railroad Commission Staff Proposes Draft Rule for Disclosure of Frac Chemicals" »

Bills of Interest from the Texas Legislature's now-completed session:

• SB 652 - re-authorized the Texas Railroad Commission for two more years. The Lege was unable to agree on changes recommended by the Sunset Commission to reform the RRC. See my discussion of Sunset recommendations here and here. Legislators could not agree on a provision changing the terms of the three commissioners from 6 to 4 years, and could not agree on a provision transferring hearings involving enforcement and gas utility rates to the State Office of Administrative Hearings.  See story here.
• HB 3134 - Revises earlier legislation (HB 2259, passed in the previous session) that made it more difficult for an operator to renew its operating license if it had unplugged wells not in compliance with rules. The revision gives the operators more time to achieve compliance, and will make it more difficult to require operators to plug inactive wells. See my description of HB 2259 here.
• HB 3328 - mandates public disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing treatments in Texas. The oil and gas industry supported the measure. Environmental groups called the legislation a mixed bag.  EDF advisor Scott Anderson said that the bill doesn't allow for a "simple, statewide list of what chemicals are used by whom and in what quantities." Also, the bill may not be fully implemented until 2013.  Railroad Commissioner David Porter said he would push the RRC to complete its rulemaking on the bill by July 1, 2012, a full year before the deadline set out in the bill.
• SB 875 - prohibits nuisance suits against gas companies as long as they have a valid permit and are in compliance. The bill was pushed by the industry to prevent nuisance lawsuits related to emissions and noise from gas compressor facilities and other installations near populated areas.
• SB 332 - provides that a landowner "owns the groundwater beneath the surface of the landowner's land as real property," and entitles the landowner to drill for and produce the groundwater, subject to reasonable regulation. This bill as originally filed provided that a landowner "has a vested ownership interest in and right to produce groundwater below the surface of the landowner's property." The bill is likely to give rise to litigation about the ability of groundwater districts to regulate water wells.

Other legislation of interest that did not pass:

• HB 2087 - would have allowed operators to force-pool non-participating royalty interests. The bill was opposed by landowners, including the Texas Land and Mineral Owners' Association.
• HB 2939- would have required operators to submit an annual report of groundwater used to the RRC, the TCEQ and the TWDB.
• HB 3586 - would have allowed for compulsory unitization for purposes of enhanced oil recovery and CO2 storage.

Recently some of my clients have received notices of class action settlements in Coll v. Abaco Operating, LLC, et al., in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, C.A. No. 2:08-CV-345 TJW. The case reveals a little-known aspect of royalty payments: many companies never reimburse their royalty owners for refunds of severance taxes.

Most royalty owners know little about severance taxes except that they are a deduction that regularly appears on their royalty check stubs. Texas imposes a tax on the value of all oil and gas produced in the state: 7.5% for gas and 4.6% for oil. Most producing states impose similar severance taxes. Pennsylvania has been debating whether to pass a severance tax in light of its budget problems and recent development of the Marcellus Shale in that state. Texas' severance taxes are paid into its "rainy day fund" that has been much in the news of late.

Continue reading "Class Action to Force Companies to Reimburse Royalty Owners for Severance Tax Refunds - Coll v. Abaco" »

The three current Texas Railroad Commissioners and the new incoming Commissioner David Porter all testified before the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission earlier this month, defending the RRC against criticism in the Sunset Commission staff report. The three commissioners are elected by Texas voters, and a position on the commission is often viewed as a steping-stone to higher office.  Two current commission members, Michael Williams and Elizabeth Ames Jones, both considered running for U.S. Senate when Kay Bailey Hutchinson indicated she would step down to run for Texas Governor. State Senator John Whitmire, a member of the Sunset Commission, said that their running for U.S. Senate conflicted with their duties to the Railroad Commission. "You're running for office, but while you're doing that and regulating and making decisions, you're running and actually raising money from the folks that you are regulating." The criticism mirrors the Sunset staff report, which recommends changing the law to have the RRC run by a five-member appointed board. (For my summary of the Sunset staff report recommendations, go here.) Commissioners Victor Carrillo and Michael Williams said they would support a single elected RRC to replace the three-member commission but would oppose a five-member appointed board. Commissioner Jones said she supported the current three-commissioner governance structure.

The Sunset Advisory Commission is composed of ten members: four members of the Texas House of Representatives, four Texas senators, and two private citizens:

Senate Members:

• Glenn Hegar, Jr., Chair
• Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa
• Joan Huffman
• Robert Nichols
• John Whitmire
• Charles McMahen, Public Member

House Members:

• Dennis Bonnen, Vice Chair
• Rafael Anchia
• Byron Cook
• Linda Harper-Brown
• Larry Taylor
• Lamont Jefferson, Public Member

The Sunset Commission will vote on recommendations for legislation to continue and reform the Railroad Commission at its next meeting on Wednesday, January 12.

Texas' Sunset Advisory Commission has issued its Staff Reports on review of three of the state's most important regulatory agencies: the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC), the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), and the Public Utility Commission (PUC). These reports will frame the debate on legislation to renew the mandates of these regulatory bodies in the coming legislative session. Landowners should be aware of the Sunset Commission's recommendations and be prepared to weigh in on those issues that affect landowners' interests. Links to the full staff reports of the Sunset Commission can be found on the Commission's website at http://www.sunset.state.tx.us/ . Below is a summary of some key facts and recommendations on the RRC.

Continue reading "Texas Sunset Commission Makes Recommendations on Review of Railroad Commission" »

T. Boone Pickens has filed a lawsuit to protect his water rights in Hemphill County, a suit that highlights the problems with Texas' attempt to regulate pumping from aquifers in the State. The suit, Mesa Water, L.P. and G&J Ranch, Inc. v. Texas Water Development Board, was filed in Travis County in April.  Water is a little outside the scope of my blog, but this fight concerns the Ogallala Aquifer in the Texas Panhandle, where I was born and grew up, and so is of special interest to me.

To understand the litigation, it is necessary to know something about the Ogallala and about Texas' efforts to regulate underground water resources.

Continue reading "Water Fight in the Texas Panhandle" »

Speaker of the House Joe Strauss has charged the House Committee on Energy Resources as follows for the next legislative session:

"Survey current local ordinances governing surface use of property in oil and gas development. Recommend changes, if any, to the authority of the Railroad Commission to regulate the operation of oil and gas industries in urban areas of the state, particularly the Barnett Shale."

It seems evident from this charge that operators in the Barnett Shale will be asking the Texas Legislature to curtail the authority of municipalities to issue drilling permits for areas within their jurisdiction, or at least to limit what conditions they can place in those permits. Drilling ordinances such as those in Fort Worth and surrounding cities are becoming quite sophisticated, and place significant conditions on the granting of permits, including distances from houses and other structures, sound limits, handling of frac water, produced water and other wastes, safety requirements, traffic, and damage to surrounding streets. The City of Grapevine has revised its drilling ordinance to require an 8-foot masonry wall around the wellsite and shrubbery between 3 and 5 feet high along the wall. The City of Flower Mound is considering revision of its drilling ordinance to require companies to report their airbrorne emissions and use vapor recovery technology. In some cases, municipal ordinances are so stringent that as a practical matter they prevent drilling within city limits. I expect that eventually constitutional takings claims will be made against cities whose restrictions prevent any mineral development within their limits.

If the Legislature restricts municipal permitting authority, it could enlarge the requirements that the Railroad Commission must impose, or at least consider, when granting permits in urban areas, to include environmental considerations. The Austin Court of Appeals recently held that the Commission must consider the impact of traffic when ruling on an application for a disposal well permit. The Commission has appealed that decision, and the Texas Supreme Court has agreed to consider the case. Texas Citizens for a Safe Future and Clean Water v. Railroad Commission of Texas, 254 S.W.3d 492 (Tex.App.-Austin 2007, review granted March 12, 2010). It appears that the Commission would not relish the idea of regulating issues of traffic, noise, safety and pollution issues in urban settings, in connection with applications for well permits.

Exxon Mobil announced that it would acquire XTO Energy in an all-stock deal worth $41 billion. The acquisition is viewed as Exxon's decision to enter the domestic onshore gas shale play, which to date has been developed almost exclusively by independent producers. But the deal includes an exit clause in the event Congress passes legislation that would make hydraulic fracturing illegal or "commercially impracticable." Shale gas development would be impossible without hydraulic fracturing technology. Bills are pending in Congress (known as the FRAC Act) to subject fracturing to federal regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The bills would require companies to publicly disclose the chemicals used in frac fluids. And U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, Dem. Massachusetts, said he would hold hearings in the House Energy and Commerce Committee to review the Exxon-XTO deal and to address environmental concerns about hydraulic fracturing.

America's Natural Gas Alliance, a recently formed energy lobbying group formed by natural gas producers, has issued a press release praising the Senate's version of a climate bill.  Without actually endorsing the bill, the Alliance commended the bill's authors for "including provisions in their bill that will enable us to continue to engage in the process of developing language that will effectively promote natural gas as part of the climate solution."

The Alliance was formed in March 2009, and according to its website it represents 28 of North America's largest independent natural gas producing companies, whose members produce more than 40 percent of total U.S. natural gas supplies, about nine trillion cubic feet per year. Its members include Anadarko, Apache, Chesapeake, Devon, El Paso, Encana, Petrohawk, Pioneer, Plains, and XTO. The Alliance's position on the Kerry-Boxer energy bill is markedly different from that of the American Petroleum Institute and the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, long-time lobbyists for the energy industry which have come out strongly against cap-and-trade legislation. Alex Mills, President of Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, is in particular an opponent of cap-and-trade, saying that it will wreak havoc on the energy industry. Chesapeake, Devon, Encana, and XTO are also members of the Texas Alliance. Politics makes strange bedfellows.

But companies relying mainly on gas production -- more than 90 percent of Chesapeake's total production is natural gas -- believe that natural gas producers can benefit from climate legislation, since natural gas is a clean-burning fuel with much lower carbon emissions per unit of energy than oil or coal. Tom Price, Senior V.P. of Chesapeake for corporate development and government relations, said that "We think Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and the states that are primarily natural gas producers will come out very favoarable to a legislation that differentiates among the low-carbon fuels."

Prior to the Texas Legislature's passage of House Bill 2259, an operator could leave an inactive well unplugged indefinitely, as long as the oil and gas lease on which the well is located remains in effect, by simply filing an annual form. House Bill 2259, effective September 1, 2009, imposes additional requirements on operators desiring to delay plugging of the well.

An operator may not operate wells in Texas unless its annual Organization Report, form P-5, has been filed and accepted by the RRC. When filing the P-5, the operator must provide a form of financial assurance that it has the ability to properly plug all wells for which it is the designated operator.

The additional requirements imposed by H.B. 2259 require an operator to file certain forms each time the operator files its annual Organization Report, Form P-5, with the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC). The new forms related to inactive wells operated by the operator. An "inactive well" is a well that has had no activity for 12 consecutive months.

H.B. 2259 amends Chapters 98 and 91 of Texas Natural Resources Code. The new law provides that, if an operator has any inactive wells at the time its Organization Report is due, it must file an "Application for Extension" requesting that it not be required to plug those inactive wells. In order to be granted the extension, the operator must do each of the following four things:

Continue reading "House Bill 2259 Imposes Additional Requirements on Operators of Inactive Wells" »

A Delaware bankruptcy judge has ruled in the SemCrude bankruptcy that the claims of Texas producers for unpaid revenues from oil sales are subordinate to the claims of SemCrude's bankers. As a result, the Texas producers (and perhaps their royalty owners) may lose up to $57 million.

SemCrude filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in July 2008. SemCrude was a large purchaser of crude oil in Texas and seven other states. At the time of the filing, the SemCrude entities owed their banks $2.55 billion. It also owed more than one thousand oil and gas producers millions of dollars for oil purchased but not paid for in June and July 2008, including $57 million owed to oil and gas producers in Texas.

The court in the SemCrude bankruptcy recently ruled that the claims of Texas Producers for the $57 million in unpaid proceeds of oil and gas sales are subordinate to the claims of SemCrude's Banks, who hold liens on all os SemCrude's assets, despite a Texas statute that grants the Texas Producers a lien on their production and all proceeds of sale to secure the purchaser's obligation to pay.

The arguments made in the dispute between the Banks and the Texas Producers are complicated because they involve the interpretation of Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, a code that has been the bane of many law students' studies. The judge's ruling will be appealed and so is not the final word on the matter, but if the ruling stands it will adversely affect the rights of royalty owners in bankruptcy proceedings of oil and gas purchasers and producers, and could greatly reduce their rights to recover payments for their royalties.

Here is a simplified summary of the judge's ruling:

Continue reading "Delaware Bankruptcy Court Rules Against Texas Producers (and Royalty Owners)" »

Until fairly recently, there has been little governmental regulation of the drilling of and production of groundwater in Texas. Texas historically followed the common-law "rule of capture," which holds that, unless the groundwater rights have been severed from the surface, the surface owner is the owner of all groundwater he/she can produce from a well located on his/her land and has no liability to adjacent owners whose groundwater might be damaged by such production.  But the rule of capture is quickly changing. Groundwater rights are now being placed under the control of Groundwater Conservation Districts, which have authority to regulate the drilling of and production from water wells within their jurisdiction. What follows is a brief summary of what is now happening - the development of a plan to regulate the production of groundwater from all of the major aquifers in Texas.  Landowners should be aware of these happenings.

Continue reading "What Landowners Should Know About Groundwater Rights in Texas" »

The NAT Gas Act has been introduced in the U.S. Senate, as S. 1408, sponsored by Senators Robert Menendez, D-NJ, and Orrin Hatch, R-UT. The Act provides incentives for increased use of vehicles powered by natural gas. It was previously introduced in the House as H.R. 1835. The Act increases the tax credit for purchasing natural gas vehicles and provides incentives for installation of natural gas fueling stations.

Freightliner, a large truck maker, announced its first natural gas-powered truck model. The company claims that the truck will save $6,000 per year in fuel and maintenance costs.

Clean Energy Fuels Corporation last week opened what it says is the world's largest natural gas truck fueling station, in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California.

It appears that someone is listening to Boone Pickens.

Four legislators from Colorado, New York and Pennsylvania have introduced a bill making hydraulic fracturing subject to regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Safe Water Drinking Act.  Dubbed the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, or FRAC Act ( FRAC Act.pdf), the bill would amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to require companies to disclose the chemicals they use in their fracturing processes. The press release ( Press Release FRAC Act.pdf) from the legislators states that "It's time to fix an unfortunate chapter in the Bush administration's energy policy and close the 'Halliburton loophole' that has enabled energy companies to pump enormous amounts of toxins, such as benzene and toluene, into the ground that then jeopardize the quality of our drinking water." (Benzene and toluene are not additives to frac fluid.)

An energy lobbying group, Energy in Depth, has denounced the bill as an "unnecessary financial burden" on the industry which could result in more than half of U.S. oil wells and one-third of gas wells being closed, and reduction in natural gas production of up to 245 billion cubic feet per year.

 

Continue reading "Bill to Regulate Hydraulic Fracturing of Wells Introduced in Congress" »

A study ( Armendariz Study.pdf) published last February by Al Armendariz, an engineering professor at Southern Methodist University, concluded that gas drilling in the Barnett Shale contributes about as much air pollution to the D-FW area as emissions from cars and trucks. Dr. Armendariz's study was financed by the Environmental Defense Fund. Dr. Armendariz concluded that in the nine counties included in the D-FW metroplex area, gas drilling produced about 112 tons per day of pollution, compared with 120 tons per day from vehicle traffic. Dr. Armendariz suggested that pollution from drilling activities could be greatly reduced by requiring vapor recovery units on tank batteries and "green completions" of wells to prevent gas from being vented when a well is being completed.

Representatives of the industry quickly refuted Dr. Armendariz's conclusions, arguing that his facts were all wrong. 

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has reviewed Dr. Armendariz's report and finds its conclusions consistent with the TCEQ's own analysis. Andrea Morrow, a spokeswoman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, was quoted by the Fort Worth Star Telegram as saying that "The estimates Dr. Armendariz provides for individual source categories are comparable to the TCEQ estimates."  TCEQ estimates that gas drilling in the nine-county area generates 90 tons per day of pollution.

The D-FW metroplex area is a designated "non-attainment zone," required by the Environmental Protecton Agency to take measures to reduce the amount of ground-level ozone. The TCEQ believes that the best way to reduce ozone levels is to regulate nitrous oxides by reducing pollution from cars and trucks. A bill to require green completions in the Barnett Shale died in the recent Texas legislative session.

Expect future efforts to require companies to take measures to reduce venting of methane and volatile organic compounds in oil and gas exploration activities.