The cover story in The Economist this week is titled “Crude awakening – The truth about Big Oil and climate change.” It comes in the wake of the introduction by a group of new Democratic Congress members of a proposed “Green New Deal” to tackle climate change. When I began…
The big guys are moving into the Permian Basin. Chevron, which owns substantial fee minerals in the Permian, saw its profits jump 19 percent in the fourth quarter, increasing its oil production 71 percent in the Permian to 310,000 bbls/day. Chevron’s completions in 2018: In its DR State Wise Unit…
Tiffany Dowell, author of the Texas Agriculture Law Blog at Texas A&M, gave me permission to re-publish her excellent article on what landowners should consider when a pipeline company asks permission to survey. Here is her article. The only thing I would add is that the landowner should find out…
I ran across an excellent article, “A Primer on the Geopolitics of Oil,” by Anand Toprani, assistant professor of Strategy & Policy at the U.S. Naval War College. He has a book in the works, Oil and the Great Powers: Britain and Germany, 1914-1945. Oil has been a commodity different…
The Energy Information Administration appears to be at work during the government shutdown. Yesterday it released its regularly scheduled weekly reports. Among them: You can sign up for an email from EIA to receive a link to all of its reports at https://www.eia.gov/tools/emailupdates/?src=email .
Morningstar has published a report analyzing oil pipeline and refining capacities along the Texas Gulf Coast – “Pipeline Plans Suggest Tsunami of Crude Exports – Midstream companies looking to double Gulf Coast shipments.” pipeline-plans-suggest-tsunami-of-crude-exports-FINAL If all planned pipelines are built and run to capacity, new lines “would carry as much…
Last April the Texas Supreme Court issued its opinion in Endeavor Energy Resources, L.P. et al. v. Discovery Operating, Inc., et al., No. 16-0155, construing a retained acreage clause in an oil and gas lease. I commented that the opinion commented in dicta that, even if a lease allows the…
Wade Caldwell, San Antonio attorney and President of NARO-Texas, published the article below in the recent NARO newsletter. He has kindly allowed me to republish it here. And Happy New Year. The Take Away By: Wade Caldwell, President, NARO-Texas Two thoughts (or takeaways) on one of the most flexible words…
In Murray v. BEJ Minerals, LLC, No. 1:14-cv-00106-SPW, a panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on a fight over fossils of two “dueling dinosaurs”, a 22-foot-long theropod and a 28-foot-long ceratopsian, “engaged in mortal combat” when “entombed under a pile of sandstone.” The surface owner and…
From an article in the Dallas Morning News, “Texas power costs: What’s the cheapest way to generate electricity?”