Oil and Gas Lawyer Blog

Published on: October 2, 2019

Produced Water Supersystems

H2O Midstream recently announced its acquisition of “produced water infrastructure” from Sabalo Energy in Howard County – 37 miles of pipeline, nine salt water disposal wells, four Ellenburger salt water disposal well permits, and other assets. This brings H2O Midstream’s produced water network up to a combined “supersystem” for handling produced water of up to 435,000 barrels per day, 190 total miles of pipeline, and 40,000 barrels per day of recycling capacity. The deal includes a 15-year “acreage dedication” of Sabalo’s leases to provide produced water gathering, disposal and recycling services to Sabalo. H2O Midstream is funded by EIV Capital and its institutional partners.

H2O is one of several companies trying to create supersystem produced-water handling systems in the Permian and the Eagle Ford. Like H2O’s deal with Sabalo, these acquisitions typically involve transferring produced water infrastructure assets to the company and dedication of the seller’s leases to the system – a commitment to pay an agreed amount to the company for produced water disposal services.

From landowners’ point of view, this development presents some interesting questions and challenges.

Continue reading →

Published on: September 18, 2019

Texas Supreme Court Opines on Consent-to-Assign Provision

By John McFarland

In 2017 I wrote about consent-to-assign provisions in oil and gas leases, and I commented on a case decided by the Tyler Court of Appeals that year addressing such provisions, Carrizo Oil & Gas v. Barrow-Shaver Resources, 2017 WL 412892. In December last year, the Texas Supreme Court wrote on that case, No. 17-0332, Barrow-Shaver Resources v. Carrizo Oil & Gas. The court split 5 to 4. Although the consent-to-assign provision in the case was in a farmout agreement, it sheds light on how such provisions in oil and gas leases would be treated by the courts.

The facts of the case are these: Carrizo owned an interest in an oil and gas lease covering 22,000 acres in north-central Texas. It entered into a farmout agreement with Barrow-Shaver under which Barrow-Shaver was granted the right to drill wells and earn assignments of the lease, with Carrizo retaining an overriding royalty. The farmout agreement contained the following provision:

The rights provided to [Barrow-Shaver] under this Letter Agreement may not be assigned, subleased or otherwise transferred in whole or in part, without the express written consent of Carrizo.

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Published on: September 10, 2019

Chesapeake v. Bell – Another Decision Construing an Express Drainage Offset Clause

By John McFarland

Last March the San Antonio Court of Appeals handed down its decision in Bell v. Chesapeake Energy, No. 04-18-00129-CV. Chesapeake has asked the Texas Supreme Court to review the case. The facts bear a resemblance to Murphy v. Adams, decided by the Supreme Court last year. Both involve construction of an express offset clause in an oil and gas lease.

A typical express offset clause provides that, if a well is drilled within a certain distance from the lease boundary, the lessee must either drill an offset well or pay compensatory royalty based on the production from the adjacent well. The lessor is not required to show that the adjacent well is actually draining the leased premises. In Murphy v. Adams, the issue was what constitutes an “offset well.” The Supreme Court held (in a 5 to 4 decision) that, in the context of horizontal drilling in the Eagle Ford formation, any well drilled on the leased premises, regardless of its location, may satisfy the lessee’s obligation to drill an offset well.

In Bell v. Chesapeake, the issue is what amount of compensatory royalty Chesapeake must pay. The wells drilled on tracts adjacent to Chesapeake’s leases were not drilled parallel to the lease line, but a portion of the adjacent wells’ horizontal wellbore was within the minimum distance from the lease line to trigger the offset-well obligation. The lessors contend that Chesapeake must pay compensatory royalty based on 100% of the production from the adjacent well. Chesapeake argues that it should have to pay compensatory royalty only on the portion of the adjacent well’s production coming from perforations or “take points” that are within the minimum distance from the lease line specified in the lease.

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Published on: August 30, 2019

Unit-Line Allocation Wells

By John McFarland

We’ve recently seen several requests for royalty owners to sign a production sharing agreement for a unit-line or lease-line allocation well. Such a well would be drilled along the boundary of two existing leases or pooled units. So, unlike most allocation wells, production can’t be allocated based on the portion of the well’s productive lateral length on each lease or pooled unit. Instead, the production sharing agreement may propose to allocate production between the two leases or units in one of two ways – 50-50 to each unit, or based on acreage.

Allocating production between the two leases or units for such a well presents at least two problems: first, the actual drilled wellbore cannot actually be drilled exactly down the boundary line between the two leases or units. The wellbore will deviate, sometimes significantly, from a straight line. Second, the well may not actually be drilled down the unit line, but might be on one side or the other of the unit line, but too close to the unit line to avoid drainage or a special Rule 37 spacing permit. In addition, the wellbore might extend beyond the boundary into another lease or unit. Wellbores are getting longer and longer.

So I think the better practice is to allocate production for a unit-line allocation well based on acreage. In effect, it is the same allocation that would result if a pooled unit were created for the well.

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Published on: August 26, 2019

Energy – the Big Picture

By John McFarland

I recently heard a presentation by Dr. Scott Tinker, head of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas. He is the founder of the Switch Energy Alliance, about which I’ve written before. Switch Energy Alliance is “a 501(c)(3) dedicated to inspiring an energy-educated future that is objective, nonpartisan, and sensible.” It produced a documentary called Switch, and is working on another called Switch On. Switch can be viewed and downloaded on SEA’s website.

A premise of Dr. Tinker’s work is that rational decisions about energy and CO2 emissions and global warming can’t be made without understanding the role of energy in the world and the challenges facing efforts to wean ourselves of fossil fuels.

Here are just a few of the powerpoint slides from Dr. Tinker’s presentation (click on image to enlarge):

Sources and uses of energy in the US. Note the huge amount of “rejected energy” – wasted energy:

Global sources of energy:

A look at electricity. Electricity generation by region (note Asia Pacific): Continue reading →

Published on: August 14, 2019

North Dakota Supreme Court Decides for Royalty Owner on Post-Production Costs

By John McFarland

In a short opinion, the Supreme Court of North Dakota decided a case brought by Newfield Exploration against the North Dakota Board of University and School Lands to determine how royalties on gas should be calculated under the State’s leases to Newfield. The case illustrates how post-production costs can sometimes be hidden in “percentage-of-proceeds” or “POP” contracts for the sale of gas. Newfield Exploration Company v. State of North Dakota, No. 2019088, 2019 WL 3024639, decided 7/11/2019.

Newfield sold its gas to Oneok. The opinion describes this contract as follows:

Title to the gas passes to Oneok when it receives the gas from Newfield, but payment to Newfield is delayed until after Oneok processes the gas into a marketable form and sells the marketable gas. The price Oneok pays to Newfield for the gas is calculated based on 70-80% of the amount received by Oneok when Oneok sells the marketable gas. The 20-30% reduction of the price for which the marketable gas is sold accounts for Oneok’s cost to process the gas into a marketable form and profit.

The lease royalty clauses provided:

Lessee agrees to pay lessor the royalty on any gas, produced and marketed, based on gross production or the market value thereof, at the option of the lessor, such value to be based on gross proceeds of sale where such sale constitutes and arm’s length transaction.

All royalties on … gas … shall be payable on an amount equal to the full value of all consideration for such products in whatever form or forms, which directly or indirectly compensates, credits, or benefits lessee. Continue reading →

Published on: August 5, 2019

ConocoPhillips v. Ramirez – What is the effect of an oil and gas lease signed by the owner of a life estate?

By John McFarland

ConocoPhillips always seems to be getting into interesting scrapes.

In 1995, ConocoPhillips bought oil and gas leases from EOG covering 1,058 acres, the Las Piedras Ranch, in Zapata County. At the time there was one producing well on the leases. The minerals belonged to the Ramirez family. One member of that family was Leonor, who died in 1990, owning a 1/4 mineral interest in the Ranch. Her will devised to her son Leon Oscar Sr. “all of my right, title and interest in and to Ranch Las Piedras … during term of his natural life,” and on his death “to his children then living in equal shares.” Leon Oscar Sr. signed an oil and gas lease on the Ranch, which was acquired by ConocoPhillips.

Leon Oscar Sr. died in 2006, survived by three children – Leon, Jr., Minerva and Rosalinda. In 2010 they sued ConocoPhillips and EOG for an accounting and to establish their title to 1/4 mineral interest in the Ranch. They alleged that the oil and gas lease signed by Leon Oscar Sr. was not binding on them as remaindermen following Leon Oscar’s life estate, and that EOG and ConocoPhillips owed them an accounting and payment for 1/4 of the net profits from oil and gas production from the Ranch, from the date of first production. They also sued for prejudgment interest and attorneys’ fees. The plaintiffs settled with EOG, and in 2015 the trial court signed a final judgment against ConocoPhillips awarding plaintiffs title to the minerals and $11.1 million for their share of net profits on production from the Ranch, plus $950,000 in prejudgment interest and $1,125,000 in attorneys’ fees. In 2017, the San Antonio Court of Appeals affirmed. 534 S.W.3d 490. In June of this year the Texas Supreme Court granted ConocoPhillips’ appeal. Oral argument is set for September 17. ConocoPhillips Company, et al. v. Ramirez, No. 17,0822

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Published on: July 29, 2019

Flaring in the Permian

By John McFarland

Much has been written lately about flares of natural gas in the Permian Basin. A website called Skytruth provides a helpful interactive map allowing amazing satellite views of flares over time. Here’s a snapshot of flares in the Permian (click on image to enlarge):

One can zoom in on the map and locate each flare. This one is just east of US 285 southeast of Orla:

Since the beginning of the boom in the Permian, the Texas Railroad Commission has never denied an operator’s application for a permit to flare. With low gas prices and lack of pipeline capacity, operators have turned to flaring gas in order to produce oil.

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Published on: July 22, 2019

Solar Leases

By John McFarland

Excellent article by Shannon L. Ferrell, Professor at the Department of Agricultural Economics at Oklahoma State University, on negotiating solar leases. You can download it here.

Published on: July 15, 2019

Administrative Hearings in Texas: Three Recent Cases

By John McFarland

Three recent cases illustrate a little known aspect of Texas law – administrative law and how it works, and doesn’t work. Although the cases don’t directly affect mineral owners, they show how different the Texas Railroad Commission’s administrative process is from other agencies’.

Many disputes in Texas are resolved not in trial courts but by administrative hearings. In many cases, the law that governs those hearings is the Administrative Procedure Act, found at Chapter 2001 of Texas’ Government Code. The hearings are held before an administrative law judge (ALJ) who works for the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH). If two parties get into a dispute in which the law requires adjudication by an administrative hearing, an evidentiary hearing is held before an ALJ who hears testimony, takes evidence, and prepares a Proposal for Decision (PFD). The PFD then goes before the board of the responsible agency, which either adopts the PFD or makes changes, and issues a final order. That order can then be appealed to a state district court in Travis County. The district court acts as an appellate body, and must uphold the decision if it is supported by “substantial evidence” in the record from the administrative hearing and otherwise complies with the governing law.

The APA limits the grounds on which an agency can change a PFD and requires the agency to explain its reasons for doing so. APA section 2001.058(e) provides:

A state agency may change a finding of fact or conclusion of law made by the administrative law judge, or may vacate or modify an order issued by the administrative judge, only if the agency determines:

(1) that the administrative law judge did not properly apply or interpret applicable law, agency rules, written policies provided under Subsection (c), or prior administrative decisions;

(2) that a prior administrative decision on which the administrative law judge relied is incorrect or should be changed; or

(3) that a technical error in a finding of fact should be changed.

The agency shall state in writing the specific reason and legal basis for a change made under this subsection.

Two cases, both from the Austin Court of Appeals, are appeals of orders by administrative agencies. Hyundai Motor America v. New World Car Imports San Antonio, Inc., No. 03-17-00761-CV, is an appeal of a decision by the Board of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. The case involves the obscure laws that govern the relationships between car manufacturers and their dealers. Continue reading →