U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, in Amarillo, recently wrote an opinion in Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research v. BP America Production Company, 447 F.Supp.3d 522 (March 3, 2020) dealing with the enforceability of a lease provision requiring the lessee to obtain the lessor’s consent to assign an oil…
Another great chart from the US Energy Information Administration, showing sources and uses of energy in the US last year. Click on image below to enlarge. You can also view it on the EIA website. Hydrocarbons continue as by far the largest sources of energy consumed by the US.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…