On June 25 the 13th Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi issued is opinion in Devon Energy Production Co. v. Michael A. Sheppard, et al., No. 13-19-00036-CV making a deep dive into when post-production costs can be deducted from the plaintiffs’ royalty. Plaintiffs’ leases provided for royalties on oil and…
Oil and Gas Lawyer Blog
Supreme Court agrees to hear BPX v. Strickhausen
The Texas Supreme Court has agreed to hear argument in BPX Operating v. Strickausen, Case No. 19-0567, an important case for royalty owners. I wrote about this case when it was decided last year by the Corpus Christi Court of Appeals (Strickhausen v. Petrohawk Operating, No. 04-18-00636-CV). That court ruled…
The Global Energy Mix
I read recently that, because of increased wind and solar generation capacity in Texas, no new gas-fired generating plants are being built, and some are being mothballed. Then I read this week of rolling blackouts in California, being blamed on the unreliability of wind and solar power and the need…
Solar Energy in Texas and the Chadbourne Ranch
The Texas Observer has a great article about Texas solar energy development, Texas Solar Hits a Turning Point, by Nancy Nusser. The article focuses on a new solar farm on the Chadbourne Ranch in Nolan County, owned by Garland Richards. The Holstein solar farm has 709,000 solar panels on 1,300…
Texas Reconstruction and the Semicolon Court
I have been reading Stephen Harrigan’s history of Texas, Big Wonderful Thing. Great read. I just finished Harrigan’s discussion of the period of Reconstruction in Texas after the Civil War. Two things struck me: first, in the Black Lives Matter era, how we are all being drawn into re-examining our…
Post-Production Costs Podcast
I was interviewed this week by Tiffany Dowell Lashmet, J.D., Agricultural Law Specialist with the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University. Tiffany does lots of education programs for landowners at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center. She has a great blog for anyone involved in agriculture.…
Another Chapter in Jimmy McAllen’s Fight with Forest Oil
It seems that Jimmy McAllen’s troubles over damages and injuries he suffered when Forest Oil buried mercury-contaminated iron sponge wood chips on his ranch will never end. Arbitration of his claims resulted in a $20 million award which was affirmed by the Corpus Christi Court of Appeals, and the Supreme…
TexNet is adding an earthquake monitoring station in Odessa
UT’s Bureau of Economic Geology has installed monitoring stations to record earthquakes across oil and gas fields in Texas, following the Legislature’s appropriation of funds for that purpose. It has been up and running since 1/1/17. Remember there was a big debate about whether oil and gas activities have resulted…
The Saga of the Dune Sagebrush Lizard Continues
Read about most recent developments here. After failed efforts of the industry to self-police destruction of lizard habitat in the Permian, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to launch a full review of a proposal to classify the lizard as either endangered or threatened. The saga goes back…
Here’s An Interesting Graph on Shale Plays
Click on graph to enlarge.