Articles Posted in Recent Cases

In this case, decided last April, the Texas Supreme Court held that the force majeure clause in an oil and gas lease could not be relied on to extend the date by which a well had to be commenced to keep the lease in force.

The facts are these:

MRC owned a lease covering 4,000 acres in Loving County. The lease provided that, at the end of the primary term, the lease would terminate except as to designated production units around existing wells unless MRC engaged in “continuous drilling”—spudding a well within 180 days after the spud date of the previous well. Prior to the end of the primary term MRC had drilled five wells on the lease. Under continuous drilling clause, MRC had to spud a well by May 21, 2016 to avoid partial termination of the lease.

Twenty years ago I wrote an article, “Issues Concerning Royalty Valuations and Deductions,” published in the Petroleum Accounting and Financial Management Journal. One of those issues I discussed was the recurring problem of post-production cost deductions. In the article I contrasted the approaches to lease construction illustrated by two cases: Heritage Resources v. NationsBank, 939 S.W.2d 118 (Tex. 1996), and Rogers v. Westerman Farm Co., 29 P.3d 887 (Colo. 2001). A recent decision from the Colorado Supreme Court, Board of County Commissioners of Boulder County, Colorado v. Crestone Peak Resources Operating, LLC, 2023 WL 8010221 (Nov. 20, 2023), further illustrates the contrasting approaches taken by Texas and Colorado courts in construing oil and gas leases.

First, Heritage v. NationsBank and Rogers v. Westerman. Both decided whether post-production costs could be charged to the royalty owner in two oil and gas leases. The NationsBank lease provided that “there shall be no deductions from the value of the Lessor’s royalty by reason of any required processing, cost of dehydration, compression, transportation or other matter to market such gas.” But because the lease provided for gas royalties based on “market value at the well,” the Texas Supreme Court held that transportation costs were deductible from NationsBank’s royalty. The Westerman lease provided that the royalty would be “one-eighth of the gross proceeds received from the sale of such produced substances where same is sold at the mouth of the well, or … if not sold at the mouth of the well, … one-eighth of the market value thereof at the mouth of the well, but in no event more than one-eighth of the actual amount received by the lessee for the sale thereof.” The Colorado Supreme Court held that the lessee must bear all post-production costs necessary to get the gas into “marketable condition.”

The Heritage court hung its opinion on the term “at the mouth of the well.” Since royalty is to be based on the market value at the well, there can be no deductions from that value, so the no-deductions clause was “surplusage.” The Westerman court instead said the term “at the mouth of the well … says nothing about the parties’ intent with respect to allocation of costs,” and concluded that the lease is “silent with respect to allocation of costs.”

This case illustrates an increasing problem related to salt water disposal in the Permian Basin. Recent articles in Texas Monthly and other publications have documented leaks from old abandoned wells caused by injection of massive quantities of salt water into shallow formations.Iskandia Energy Operating, Inc. v. SWEPI LP, No. 08-22-00103-CV, El Paso Court of Appeals, October 31, 2023.

Iskandia acquired oil and gas leases covering some 5,000 acres in Loving County, along with more than 100 producing wells. Iskandia planned to re-stimulate the wells and increase production.  The wells produce from formations in the Delaware Mountain Group in the Delaware Basin lobe of the Permian Basin–the Cherry Canyon, Bell Canyon and Brushy Canyon formations. These formations are just above the Bone Springs and Wolfcamp formations, which are the principal formations being drilled by operators in the Delaware lobe. Iskandia’s wells produce oil and salt water; the salt water is re-injected into the producing formation. Iskandia produces and re-injects about 6,000 barrels per day on its leases, which maintains the formation pressure and facilitates continued oil production.

SWEPI owns and operates leases adjacent to the Iskandia leases and is drilling wells in the Bone Springs and Wolfcamp. These wells also produce large volumes of salt water, and SWEPI has drilled disposal wells on its leases that inject that water into the Delaware Mountain Group formations. Iskandia produced evidence that SWEPI is injecting more than 2 million barrels per month into the DMG, and has injected more than 75 million barrels in just three years.

The Amarillo Court of Appeals recently decided PBEX II, LLC, et al. v. Dorchester Minerals, L.P. et al., addressing an interesting issue on adverse possession of a non-operating working interest. One justice dissented.

The Court’s opinion relies on two Texas Supreme Court decisions that were controversial: Natural Gas Pipeline co. of America v. Pool, 124 S.W.3d 188 (Tex. 2003) and BP America Production Co. v. Marshall, 342 S.W.3d 59 (Tex. 2010) Pool held, to everyone’s surprise, that an operator could adversely possess or revive an oil and gas lease that had expired by continuing to operate and pay royalties on production. Marshall held that an operator’s continued payment of royalty on an expired lease “establish[ed] as a matter of law that [the mineral owner] was on notice that [the operator] claimed to own the leasehold ….”

In Dorchester, Torch was the owner of a 25% interest in an oil and gas lease covering a section of land in Midland County. Torch was party to an operating agreement under which it was a non-operating working interest owner. In 1990 Torch signed an assignment to Dorchester’s predecessors which Torch later claimed erroneously included its working interest in the lease. But from 1990 to 2016 Dorchester and its predecessors participated as working interest owners in the lease, paying their share of costs and receiving their share of revenues, in effect claiming to own Torch’s working interest.

Today the Texas Supreme Court agreed to hear Ammonite Oil & Gas Corp. v. Railroad Commission of Texas and EOG Resources, an appeal from the Commission’s denial of sixteen applications by Ammonite under the Mineral Interest Pooling Act.

I wrote about this case when it was decided against Ammonite by the Austin Court of Appeals. Ammonite has oil and gas leases from the State on the bed of the Frio River. Operators, including EOG, have drilled horizontal wells whose last take points extend to 100 feet from the edge of the river. Ammonite applied to the Commission to include portions of the riverbed in the units for the EOG wells. The Commission denied the applications.

Ammonite holds more than 50 state riverbed leases and has filed MIPA cases against EOG, Apache, Chesapeake and ConocoPhillips, all of which have resisted Ammonite’s efforts to include riverbed acreage in their units, leaving the minerals under the riverbed stranded. Royalties from riverbed leases are paid into the Texas Permanent School Fund for the benefit of Texas schools, managed by the Texas General Land Office.

EP Energy E&P Co., L.P. v. Storey Minerals, Ltd., 2022 SL 223253 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 2022, pet. denied)

The Texas Supreme Court recently refused to review the opinion of the San Antonio Court of Appeals in this case, involving construction of a favored nations clause in an oil and gas lease. The court of appeals held that, under the favored nations clause, EP Energy owed the lessor an additional $41 million bonus. One judge dissented.

The case also recounts the “colorful history” of the Altito Ranch, covering about 23,000 acres in La Salle County. EP Energy’s brief describes that history: