The Texas rule against perpetuities (the “Rule”) was something all lawyers learned about in law school, but it seemed at the time like a concept we would not run into very often in real life law practice. Unfortunately, it comes up regularly in connection with Texas oil and gas leases…
The Texas 14th Court of Appeals recently interpreted a pipeline easement and that interpretation may have application for many other pipeline easements in existence in Texas. The case is Texas Land & Cattle II, Ltd. v ExxonMobil Pipeline Company. Texas Land & Cattle (TLC) owned real property in Harris County,…
The Texas Supreme Court decided a case recently involving an assignment of an overriding royalty interest (ORRI) in minerals located in Wheeler County, Texas. That case is Piranha Partners et al v. Joe Neuhoff et al. In 1975, Neuhoff Oil & Gas purchased an undivided two-thirds interest in a mineral…
The Commissioners of the Texas Railroad Commission recently voted unanimously to amend Rule 3.40, which has to do with the assignment of acreage to pooling and proration units. The current rule provides that “… acreage assigned to a well for drilling and development, or for allocation of allowable, shall not…
I recently had occasion to review the Texas Supreme Court’s decision on a long-running dispute between BP America and Laddex, Ltd. The case is centered around a disagreement of the terms in a decades old lease and its result has been significant for the energy industry. The case, known as …
Recently the Texas Supreme Court decided an interesting case in which it examined whether a will had given a surface estate or a mineral estate to the beneficiaries of the will. In ConocoPhillips et al v. Leon Oscar Ramirez Jr. et al, the testatrix, Leonor Juan, executed a will in…
Texas has been, unfortunately, home to a number of oil and gas scams over the years. One of the most common is the company who wants to buy your mineral interests and who has you sign a deed before they pay you. Once they have a signed deed in hand,…
As many Texas landowners are aware, oil and gas pipelines are being constructed at an almost frantic pace these days. The first time a landowner is aware that they may be asked to sign a pipeline easement is a usually a call from a land man or right-of-way agent requesting…
In Ridge Natural Resources, LLC v. Double Eagle Royalty, LP, 2018 WL 4057283 (Tex.Civ.App.- El Paso 2018), a case involving a dispute over ownership of mineral interests in Winkler County, Texas, the El Paso Court of Appeals upheld a mandatory arbitration clause in an oil and gas royalty lease.…
In general, Texas courts will enforce contracts — including oil and gas contracts — as those contracts are written unless the contract violates statutory law or public policy. These principles apply equally to choice of law provisions that may be inserted into oil and gas contracts. A recent case from…