The Texas Supreme Court in Roxo Energy Company, LLC v. Baxsto, LLC reinforced a fundamental contract principle: when fully integrated agreements plainly conflict with prior oral representations, reliance on those inconsistent...more
In Franklin v. Regions Bank the Fifth Circuit concluded that a royalty clause in a mineral lease resulted in a gross proceeds royalty; the royalty owners did not bear their proportionate share of post-production costs. Read...more
In American Midstream (Alabama Intrastate), LLC v. Rainbow Energy Marketing Corporation, the Texas Supreme Court held that the trial court improperly inserted the words “scheduled” and “physical” into a contract. By...more
In Cromwell v. Anadarko E & P Onshore LLC the Supreme Court of Texas did what it so often does: In order to provide “legal certainty and predictability”, the Court considered the plain language of a contract in order to...more
In Williams O & G Resources, LLC v. Diamondback Energy, Inc., a federal magistrate judge concluded that the Texas Relinquishment Act does not apply to public-school lands patented after 1931. The report and recommendation was...more
In Myers-Woodward, LLC v. Underground Services Markham, LLC et al, (discussed previously) the parties disagreed on how to calculate Myers’ royalty on salt produced by Underground....more
Thought you’d heard the last of force majuere cases arising from Winter Storm Uri? Think again.
In Marathon Oil Company v. Koch Services LLC. the question was how to measure damages suffered by Koch for Marathon’s...more
Sewak v. Sutherland Energy Co. Ltd. is of interest for how the court defined terms commonly used in consulting contracts in the oil and gas industry, and how difficult it is to foresee all contingencies when negotiating a...more
In Smart v. 3039 RNC Holdings LLC, the court reminds us that it will harmonize all parts of a contract, even one that “is not a model of clarity”, to reach the correct result.
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In Devon Energy Production Company, LP et al v. Sheppard et al, the Supreme Court of Texas construed what it referred to as a “bespoke” and “highly unique” royalty clause in several oil and gas leases to prohibit the...more
Precious little legal analysis is required to grasp the lesson from Springbok Royalty Partners v. Cook. No mode or manner of legal gymnastics is likely to save parties from the legal effect of a contract they didn’t bother...more
Those who continue to be horrified by Broadway National Bank, Trustee v. Yates Energy Corp. should be relieved that the result in Endeavor Energy Resources, LP v. Anderson was more equitable. In Yates, the Texas Supreme Court...more
How many different meanings can parties attribute to a term in an oil and gas lease? Answer: As many as they want, but the court will only use one, says King Operating et al v. Double Eagle Andrews, LLC et al....more
Sometimes writing too many alternatives into an oil and gas lease invites confusion … which provokes litigation … which results in disappointment for somebody … or everybody. ...more
Yowell v. Granite Op. Co. and Apache Corp. v. Peyton Royalties, L.P. is another Rule Against Perpetuities case. Keep reading. The anti-washout protection for your reserved overriding royalty could be at risk....more
In Apache Corp. v. Hill, et al., lessors prevailed in a lease construction dispute because of the court’s unsurprising conclusion that a typewritten addendum to oil and gas leases superseded conflicting provisions in the...more
Yesterday we discussed aspects of PPC Acquisition Co., LLC, et al. v. Delaware Basin Res., LLC, et al. Today we consider whether the retained-acreage clauses created a special limitation or a covenant and the relationship...more
In Endeavor Energy Resources, L.P. v. Energen Resources Corp. et al. the Supreme Court of Texas construed a continuous development clause in an oil and gas lease covering 11,300 acres in Howard County. After the primary term,...more
In Mayo Found. For Med. Educ. & Research v. BP Am. Prod. Co. a United States District Court considered the circumstances under which a lessor can withhold its consent to assign an oil and gas lease....more
10/20/2020
/ Consent to Assignment ,
Contract Interpretation ,
Contract Terms ,
Lessor ,
Mineral Extraction ,
Mineral Leases ,
Mineral Rights ,
Oil & Gas ,
Operating Agreements ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Reasonableness Factors
The Texas Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral arguments in a dispute over an “accumulation” provision in a continuous development clause of an oil and gas lease. The case is Endeavor Energy Resources L.P. v. Energen...more
The 2019 Texas legislature enacted a new Property Code Section 5.152 to protect mineral and royalty owners from a certain species of fraudulent transactions perpetrated on trusting and/or naïve and/or out of state mineral...more
11/5/2019
/ Contract Interpretation ,
Contract Terms ,
Fraud ,
Fraudulent Conveyance ,
Future Royalties ,
Gas Royalties ,
Land Titles ,
Mineral Leases ,
Mineral Rights ,
Oil & Gas ,
Property Owners ,
Scams ,
Transfer of Interest
Under Louisiana law, does the operator’s bad faith preclude recovery for the non-operator’s breach of a joint operating agreement if the operator caused the non-operator to breach the JOA but did not itself breach?...more
10/31/2019
/ Ambiguous ,
Bad Faith ,
Breach of Contract ,
Contract Disputes ,
Contract Interpretation ,
Contract Terms ,
Deepwater Horizon ,
Diversity Jurisdiction ,
Good Faith ,
Joint Operating Agreement ,
Offshore Drilling ,
Oil & Gas ,
Operating Agreements
Two Texas Supreme Court decisions published on the same day confirm that retained acreage clauses that vary in language from one instrument to another will likely vary in effect. Depending on the language, the lessee might...more
Recall the Battle of the Bastards: The heroic Lady Sansa and the duplicitous Lord Baelish gallop over the hill to save the foolish Jon Snow from the heinous Ramsey Bolton. In similar fashion, but without the malnourished...more
4/9/2018
/ Ambiguous ,
Breach of Contract ,
ConocoPhillips ,
Contract Interpretation ,
Contract Terms ,
Energy Sector ,
Mineral Leases ,
Mineral Rights ,
Oil & Gas ,
Rule Against Perpetuities ,
TX Supreme Court
The ruling from the Supreme Court of Texas in JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., et al v. Orca Assets, G.P., L.L.C. was foreseeable. Experienced energy professionals who pass on the opportunity to examine title for themselves are...more