In September 2015, the Texas Governor signed into law Texas Senate Bill 478 , which adds Section 22.019 to Chapter 22, Subchapter A, of the Government Code. The new law reads as follows: Sec. 22.019. PROMULGATION OF CERTAIN LANDLORD-TENANT FORMS. (a) The supreme court shall, as the court finds appropriate,…
In 2015, Enterprise Product Partners announced plans for a new pipeline that will run over 400 miles from Midland, Texas to Sealy, Texas. The yet-to-be-named pipeline will originate at Enterprise Product Partners’ trading and storage hub in Midland and will connect with the eighty mile Rancho II pipeline in Sealy.…
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an unpublished opinion last year in Waggoner v. Denbury Onshore, LLC, et al. concerning the application of state antitrust law to royalty payments. It should be noted that while the opinion is instructive on how the 5th Circuit Court…
The United States Geological Survey (“USGS”) has just announced the assessment of this country’s largest oil and gas shale deposit located in Texas. You can review a copy of the actual assessment here. The area where the deposit is located is known as the Wolfcamp shale contains 20 billion barrels…
On May 12, 2016, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its final Methane Rule, mandating new limits on methane gas emissions, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emissions and other by-products such as benzene associated with oil and natural gas production wells and storage tanks. The new EPA rule is…
In 1994 Roland Oil Co. acquired the North Charlotte Field Unit Lease in Atascosa County, Texas. The Lease contained 31 wells, with the oldest wells drilled sometime in the 1950s. The Lease contained both active and inactive wells. Rule 14 of the Texas Railroad Commission requires that “dry or inactive…
In September 2016, Oklahoma experienced a 5.6-magnitude earthquake near the town of Pawnee. The quake was the first in a series that started on the morning of Saturday September 3, 2016. While no one was severely hurt or killed during the earthquake, somey buildings suffered moderate to severe damage. The…
In an earlier blog post, we discussed the Texas fracing case that was headed to the Texas Supreme Court for further review. On April 24, 2015, the Texas Supreme Court issued its opinion in In Re Steven Lipsky, and determined that the Texas Citizens Participation Act does not require that…
There has been an ongoing debate about whether hydraulic fracturing activities for producing oil and gas have an impact on drinking water supplies near and around the fracing site. Recently, the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Science Advisory Board (SAB) raised a number of questions concerning the EPA’s June…
Recently, Ryan Sitton, who is both an engineer and one of the Texas Railroad Commission‘s Commissioners, spoke out about the false news reports concerning the Texas oil and gas industry in a commentary in the Wilson County News. Below, I reprint a pertinent portion of his comments: Headlines proclaiming that…