In what is good news for royalty owners and mineral owners in the Permian Basin in Texas, the Energy Information Administration (“EIA”) recently issued a Drilling Productivity Report that projects that output from the Permian Basin will increase by almost 3000 barrels of oil per day. The Permian Basin The…
In rereading a news release issued by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, I was struck again by how much money is taken in by oil and gas scam artists. The news release recounted that a California man named John G. Westine, Jr. was convicted of…
As the Texas Supreme Court noted recently, it is the responsibility of mineral owners to review their deeds carefully to ensure that the rights and reservations in the deed are what they intend and that there are no mistakes. Specifically, in Cosgrove v. Cade, the Court held that “Plainly obvious…
Good news for royalty owners in the Delaware Basin in West Texas. The Delaware Basin is a geologic formation that is well known for holding large oil fields. Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas and Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico are located within the Delaware Basin. The Delaware…
It is not uncommon in Texas for a landowner, for example, someone who has inherited property, to find that the property is landlocked and without access to a public road. Sometimes access to the landlocked property is offered by a friendly neighbor. However, in the absence of an adjoining property…
Last year, the Texas Supreme Court decided the case of Coyote Lake Ranch, LLC v. City of Lubbock that dealt with whether the “accommodation doctrine” should be applied to groundwater. The accommodation doctrine is actually an oil and gas doctrine, which states that absent an agreement to the contrary, an…
Earlier this week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Chris Faulkner, his company, Breitling Energy Corporation and several other parties for defrauding investors. The complaint filed by the SEC can be reviewed here. The SEC Complaint alleges that the Defendants intentionally and repeatedly misled purchasers of working interests regarding…
In a case that many Texas landowners have been following closely through the courts, the Texas Supreme Court recently published a decision concerning whether a county can be held liable for an impermissible taking of property when the county allows for land development that the county knows will cause substantial…
The Texas Supreme Court recently decided an important eminent domain case in In Re Lazy W District No. 1, Relator. Specifically, the Court decided that the trial court must consider whether the court has jurisdiction over a proceeding as quickly as possible in a case, and need not wait on the…
You wouldn’t think that building a stock pond on your own property would be something that requires the approval of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would you? One unsuspecting family in Wyoming found out just how far the EPA was willing to go in an effort to “protect…