Last week, the Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio issued its opinion in Chesapeake v. Hyder.pdf, on gas royalties owed to the Hyder family for production in Johnson and Tarrant Counties, in the Barnett Shale. The court upheld a judgment against Chesapeake for more than a million dollars, including…
Julia Trigg-Crawford, a landowner in Lamar County, has asked the Texas Supreme Court to hear her case arguing that TransCanada has no right to condemn her property for the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Crawford Family Farm Partnership v. TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, L.P., No. 13-0866. Although other segments of the pipeline…
The Klotzman mineral owners have appealed the Texas Railroad Commission’s order granting EOG a permit to drill an “allocation well” on their land. A copy of the petition can be viewed here: Klotzman Petition.pdf. Our firm represents the Klotzmans. For my previous posts about allocation wells and the Klotzman case,…
The San Antonio Court of Appeals recently decided a case illustrating the new kinds of issues that can arise from the drilling of horizontal wells. In Springer Ranch v. Jones, Alice Burkholder owned a ranch, 8,545 acres in La Salle and Webb Counties. She signed a single oil and gas…
On December 20, the Office of Inspector General of the Environmental Protection Agency issued its “Response to Congressional Inquiry Regarding the EPA’s Emergency Order to the Range Resources Gas Drilling Company.” The report was requested by Congress as a result of an emergency order issued by the Dallas regional office…
StateImpact Texas has published a series of good articles about the growing evidence that the huge quantities of wastewater being injected in the Barnett Shale field are causing earthquakes — some of sufficient intensity to cause significant damages. Lawsuits have been filed in Johnson County to recover for the damage. StateImpact’s…
Suppose that the fluids injected into a disposal well migrate beyond the boundary of the tract where the well is located; does that incursion of the injected fluids into and under the neighbor’s property constitute a trespass? Until recently, this question had never been addressed by a Texas appellate…
Lawsuits against Chesapeake Exploration for wrongfully deducting post-production costs from its gas royalty payments are hitting a boiling-point. Suits are being pursued against the company in every jurisdiction where it operates, including Texas, Arkansas, Lousiana, Kansas, Ohio, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. Chesapeake has recently been much more aggressive in…
For those following the Klotzman allocation well dispute, here are links to the replies of EOG and intervenors to the Klotzmans’ motion for rehearing at the Railroad Commission: 2013-10-24_Reply to Motion for Rehearing docx.pdf 2013-10-24 Intervenors Reply to Mtn Rehrg-filed.pdf
The Texas Railroad Commissioners voted unanimously today to reject the recommendation of its examiners denying EOG’s allocation well permit and instructed the examiners to prepare an order and findings granting EOG’s permit. For my prior posts about this case, see here, here and here.