On the last day of 2024 the Texas Supreme Court issued its opinion in ConocoPhillips v. Hahn, No. 23-0024, putting to rest a long-running dispute between Kenneth Hahn and ConocoPhillips (COP). The opinion deals with a fixed vs. floating NPRI reservation, and a stipulation of interest addressing the reservation. Kenneth…
Another case interpreting a royalty reservation in an old conveyance has been decided by the 11th Court of Appeals in Eastland: Boren Descendants and Mabee Descendants v. Fasken Oil and Ranch, Ltd., two consolidated appeals, Nos. 11-22-00365-CV and 11-23-00001-CV. This is the first skirmish in a fight that will undoubtedly…
MIT’s Casey Crownhart publishes a newsletter called The Spark. Here is his list of greenhouse gasses and their potency: Carbon dioxide: The leading actor I couldn’t in good conscience put together a list of greenhouse gases and not at least mention the big one. Human activities released 37.4 billion tons…
In Fasken Oil and Ranch, Ltd. v. Puig, No. 04-23-00106-CV, the San Antonio Court of Appeals was asked to construe a royalty reservation in a 1960 deed: There is saved, excepted and reserved, in favor of the undersigned, B.A. Puig, Jr., out of the above described property, an undivided one-sixteenth…
In Mitchell v. Map Resources, the Texas Supreme Court described the constitutional right of due process as follows: The Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution prevents the government from depriving a person of his or her “property, without due process of law.” U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1;…
Last month the Railroad Commission published proposed revisions to its rules governing the handling of oilfield waste. This is a comprehensive rewrite of its rules that had not been revised since 1984. The Commission has been working on these revisions for a year. The published proposed rules can be found…
Unitex WI, LLC v. CT Land and Cattle Co., decided by the Amarillo Court of Appeals, petition for review pending in Texas Supreme Court. CT Land and Cattle owns the surface estate of 4,000 acres in Scurry and Kent Counties. The land is subject to an oil and gas lease…
Graves Dougherty Celebrates the Life of Ben F. Vaughan III Rembrance here. My law partner for 45 years.
Three scientists with the Department of Earth Sciences at Southern Methodist University have published the results of a study of blowouts of old wells in the Permian Basin caused by injection of produced water. The summary from the study: Wastewater, a byproduct during oil extraction, is generally injected back into…
Last week the Texas Supreme Court handed down its decision in Ammonite v. Railroad Commission, upholding the Commission’s denial of Ammonite’s MIPA application. Justice Young filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Busby. The case has little implication for most mineral owners in Texas but is an important loss for…