In Texas, an oil and gas lease grants to the lessee the fee mineral estate in the leased premises for the term of the lease. The lease provides for an initial term during which the lessee need do nothing in order to keep the lease in effect — called the…
I was recently reminded of a series of blog posts I did more than 10 years ago about the oil and gas lease. A law student who had come across one of my posts contacted me, telling me that she was the great-granddaughter off J.A. Heydrick of Oil City, Pennsylvania,…
Last March the El Paso Court of Appeals decided Cimarex Energy v. Anadarko Petroleum, No. 08-16-00353-CV. The facts are these: Cimarex leased a 1/6th interest in 440 acres in Ward County. Anadarko leased the remaining 5/6ths. Cimarex asked Anadarko to let Cimarex participate in wells on the leases under a…
The San Antonio Court of Appeals handed down its opinion last week in Strickhausen v. Petrohawk Operating Company, No. 04-18-00636-CV. The issue: Did Ms. Strickhausen ratify a pooled unit not authorized by her lease, or is she estopped from contesting the validity of the unit, because she accepted royalty checks…
Like most subjects, understanding oil and gas law is often a matter of knowing the terminology – WI, RI, ORRI, NPRI. These terms are often used in a confusing way and the definitions sometimes overlap. So I’m going to try to clear things up. It all starts with the mineral…
The Texas Supreme Court recently refused to consider the case of Devon Energy Production Company v. Apache Corporation, decided by the Eastland Court of Appeals – 550 S.W.3d 259. The case presents issues that, remarkably, have not previously been considered by a Texas appellate court. Norma Jean Hester leased her…
In Devon v. Apache, No. 11-16-00105-CV, the Eleventh Court of Appeals sheds some light on a vexing problem that remarkably has never been addressed by a Texas court. To understand the problem, consider the facts in Devon v. Apache: Norma Jean Hester leased her one-third mineral interest in land in…
The Texas Supreme Court recently decided JPMorgan Chase Bank v. Orca Assets GP, LLC, No. 15-0712, an interesting exposition on the value and risks of including no-warranty language in an oil and gas lease. JPMorgan was trustee of the Red Crest Trust, which owns about 40,000 acres of minerals in…
I got the idea to start this blog after I made a presentation to a landowner group in which I distributed a checklist for negotiating an oil and gas lease. Soon thereafter, I began receiving calls from people who had found the checklist on the internet. The organization that sponsored…
On September 22, the Texas Supreme Court refused to reconsider its opinion in BP America v. Red Deer Resources, No. 15.0569 – after some 16 amicus briefs and letters were filed urging the court to grant Red Deer’s motion for rehearing. The Court addressed the construction of a shut-in royalty…