The Texas legislative session has now ended. I followed 44 bills identified as potentially affecting the interests of mineral owners. Only two of those bills passed. HB 40 The bill that produced the most controversy was HB 40, introduced by Rep. Darby, chair of the House Energy Resources Committee. It…
The Texas Legislature has passed a supplemental appropriation of $4.471 million to fund a study of the cause of recent earthquakes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The money will be used to fund the purchase and use of seismic monitoring equipment and modeling of reservoir behavior, testing any connection between…
Two recent articles brought to mind the trade-offs in the debate over hydraulic fracturing. First, the Department of Environmental Conservation of New York State issued its Final Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, on the environmental impacts of allowing hydraulic fracturing in New York. New York has had a moratorium on…
Google has teamed up with the Environmental Defense Fund to detect leaks in gas lines in the Los Angeles Area, Boston, Indianapolis, Staten Island, Syracuse, and Burlington, Vermont. Google attached methane detectors to the cars it uses to create its street map images and has mapped the locations where it found levels…
An excellent article by Judon Fambrough of the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, about how oil and gas leases can be extended beyond there primary term, can be found here. Great tips about how to avoid pitfalls in lease terms. Mr. Fambrough has written many good articles about…
Modern oil and gas leases often contain restrictions on the right of the lessee to assign the lease to third parties. The lease may require the consent of the lessor to any assignment, or it may impose conditions on the right to assign — for example, that the lessee retain…
This graphic from Bloomberg article, US Fracklog Triples as Drillers Keep Oil from Market (click to enlarge): Bloomberg says that these uncompleted wells, if completed (that is, hydraulically fractured), would produce 322,000 bbls/day, equivalent to the current production of Libya. Total drilled but uncompleted wells, according to Bloomberg: 4,731.
In 2013, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 724, creating the Texas Unclaimed Mineral Proceeds Commission, and charged the commission to study and provide recommendations regarding distribution of unclaimed mineral proceeds held by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. The bill was sponsored by State Representative Ryan Guillen. The Commission…
Christi Craddick, Chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, testified in Washington yesterday before the House Science and Technology Committee, chaired by Lamar Smith, as part of a panel addressing environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing and wastewater disposal. Introductory remarks and testimony can be viewed here. The testimony reflects, I think,…
Oklahoma regulators have finally awakened to the seismic activity caused by water well injection in their state. Take a look a this new website unveiled this week by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. And look at their interactive map showing seismic events and injection wells. Oklahoma now surpasses California in seismic…