Excellent investigative reporting by Texas Tribune on how the Texas Railroad Commission fails to enforce state and federal laws requiring restoration of coal mines. “Texas coal companies are leaving behind contaminated land. The state is letting them.” Mirrors my experience with trying to get the RRC to force E&P companies…
A U.S. District Court in Arkansas decided a case in 2016 that a client sent me, Whisenhunt Investments, LLC v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 2016 WL 7494266, No. 4:13cv00656 JM, Eastern District of Arkansas, Western Division, raising an interesting issue on post-production costs. Arkansas has forced pooling. The forced pooling statute…
A study released by TexNet concludes that “some earthquakes in west Texas are more likely due to hydraulic-fracturing than salt-water disposal.” TexNet is a seismic monitoring program run by the University of Texas and funded by the legislature as a result of unusual earthquake activity in several areas of Texas…
Two recent court of appeals cases address the enforceability of liquidated damages clauses: TEC Olmos, LLC v. ConocoPhillips Company, and Fairfield Industries v. EP Energy E&P Company. The Texas Supreme Court requested the parties in TEC Olmos to file briefs on the merits but recently denied review. In EP Energy,…
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…
H2O Midstream recently announced its acquisition of “produced water infrastructure” from Sabalo Energy in Howard County – 37 miles of pipeline, nine salt water disposal wells, four Ellenburger salt water disposal well permits, and other assets. This brings H2O Midstream’s produced water network up to a combined “supersystem” for handling…
In 2017 I wrote about consent-to-assign provisions in oil and gas leases, and I commented on a case decided by the Tyler Court of Appeals that year addressing such provisions, Carrizo Oil & Gas v. Barrow-Shaver Resources, 2017 WL 412892. In December last year, the Texas Supreme Court wrote…
Last March the San Antonio Court of Appeals handed down its decision in Bell v. Chesapeake Energy, No. 04-18-00129-CV. Chesapeake has asked the Texas Supreme Court to review the case. The facts bear a resemblance to Murphy v. Adams, decided by the Supreme Court last year. Both involve construction of…
We’ve recently seen several requests for royalty owners to sign a production sharing agreement for a unit-line or lease-line allocation well. Such a well would be drilled along the boundary of two existing leases or pooled units. So, unlike most allocation wells, production can’t be allocated based on the portion…
I recently heard a presentation by Dr. Scott Tinker, head of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas. He is the founder of the Switch Energy Alliance, about which I’ve written before. Switch Energy Alliance is “a 501(c)(3) dedicated to inspiring an energy-educated future that is objective,…