Texas mineral owners contact me from time to time and ask why an oil company is drilling on their land when they haven’t signed an oil and gas lease. The answer to these questions lies in the Texas law regarding co-tenants. An interesting opinion was recently issued in the case…
The staff of the Texas Railroad Commission is proposing amendments to the pipeline safety rules for oil and gas and other pipelines in Texas. These amendments will affect rules 18.1, 18.4 and 18.11. The amendments remove a reference to “intrastate” pipelines to make clear that the Commission now has safety…
The Texas Supreme Court recently addressed whether a lender is required to forfeit payment and interest payments made by a borrower when the lender has violated the terms of a home equity loan, and whether this a remedy is a matter of right available under the Texas Constitution or through…
Given the increase in production of natural gas in Texas, some residents end up living close to a gas compressor stations. These stations are necessary to pump natural gas under pressure over long distances, but they can be large, noisy and produce offensive odors. Some Texans who live close to…
Collecting royalties from oil and gas production is one of the ways that a Texas landowner can generate revenue from their real estate. Texas property owners who own their minerals can sign an oil and gas lease so that oil and gas can be produced from the land, in exchange…
As we discussed recently regarding the Texas Supreme Court case of Hysaw v. Dawkins, 483 SW 3d 1 (2016), old deeds, oil and gas leases, and other documents containing “1/8th royalty” clauses continue to be the source of confusion among the public, lawyers, and sometimes courts. For decades, the standard…
The question of “fractional royalty” vs “fraction of royalties” has historically been the source of enormous confusion for Texas mineral owners and oil and gas attorneys. The Texas Supreme Court recently provided more guidance on the question in the case of Hysaw v. Dawkins, 483 SW 3d 1 (2016). This…
Graph courtesy of EOG Resources EOG Resources has been experimenting with enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques that may be good news for Texas mineral and royalty owners. Specifically, EOG has been using injections of natural gas to increase oil production on approximately 15 wells. They report that the new technique…
A company known as Biodentify, based in the Netherlands, announced that it can help predict oil and gas deposits based on DNA in the soil just a foot beneath the surface! Specifically, the company claims that by analyzing the microbiological DNA of shallow soil samples, it can predict “sweet spots”…
Interesting to realize that United States has overtaken Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world’s largest oil and gas producer and continues to lead in production. On April 7, 2016, the U.S. Energy Information Administration released a report showing the United States remained the world’s largest producer in 2014…