The post below is from my partner Nicholas Miller. Nicholas has developed a specialty helping mineral owners evaluate offers to purchase their minerals and advising them through the sale process. John and I often receive questions from clients and interested parties about selling mineral assets. John previously wrote about…
I attended the Symposium of the Texas Journal of Oil, Gas and Energy Law at UT last week. One of the speakers was Giji M. John, Partner at Orrik, Houston, on renewable energy. Here are some takeaways. (click on images to enlarge.) Renewable energy’s contribution to US energy consumption in…
I highly recommend a podcast sponsored by Texas Monthly, Boomtown. It’s a series about the history of the Permian Basin and the people who live and work there in the recent boom. Its host is Christian Wallace, who grew up in Andrews. You’ll get to meet his grandmother, who still…
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The oil and gas industry is at the beginning of a significant downturn. Oil and gas prices are down, supply is up, demand is flat. Another in the never-ending cycle of a boom-and-bust industry, now exacerbated by appearance of a potential coronavirus world epidemic and a sharp reduction in demand…
The Texas Supreme Court issued its opinion in ConocoPhillips Co. v. Ramirez, No. 17-0822, a family dispute over ownership of minerals in 10,058 acres in Zapata County, and ConocoPhillips’ claim to an oil and gas lease covering those minerals. In 1995, ConocoPhillips bought oil and gas leases from EOG covering…
Last April the Fort Worth Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Bluestone Natural Resources II, LLC v. Randle, No. 02-18-00271-CV, 2019 WL 1716415. The Court decided that, under Randle’s lease, Bluestone could not deduct post-production costs and owed royalty on plant fuel and compressor fuel. Bluestone has petitioned the…
Significant cases on oil and gas issues in 2019: In Texas Outfitters v. Nicholson, the Texas Supreme Court again addressed the duty of the older of executive rights to minerals owned by another. In Trial v. Dragon, the Supreme Court delved into the arcane theories of the Duhig rule…
Happy New Year. The decade now ending was the decade of the Permian Basin. Its rise in production changed the US to a net oil exporter. Permian gas production, a byproduct of the search for oil, drove down gas prices and resulted in a frenzied effort to build pipelines to…
The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation has funded research resulting in a report, “Emissions in the Stream: Estimating the Greenhouse Gas Impacts of an Oil and Gas Boom,” by to professors at UT Austin. The report focuses on downstream sources of methane emissions, and will be followed by a report…