Law Commons^™

Oil, Gas & Mineral Law, Austin W. Brister, Logan Jones

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This Article summarizes, sorts, and discusses the most impactful cases relating to oil, gas, and mineral law in Texas decided by the Texas Courts of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court during the Survey period.

International Energy And Natural Resources, Petra Stewart, Mariana Ardizzone, Tony Wassaf, Mauricio Becerra De La Roca Donoso, João Otávio Pinheiro Olivério, Mathias Dantin, Leonardo Sempertegui, Ricardo Alves Silva, Sara Frazão, Caryl Ben Basat

The Year in Review

No abstract provided.

Oil, Gas, And Mineral Law, Austin W. Brister

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

Oil, Gas, And Mineral Law, Austin W. Brister, Michael G. Szymanski

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This article is a survey of the relevant developments in oil, gas, and mineral law from December 1, 2019, through November 30, 2020. The article focuses on law likely to be influential to Texas practitioners.

Oil, Gas, And Mineral Law, Monika Ehrman, Owen L. Anderson

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

Down Step By Step—Ratification Of Oil And Gas Leases By Royalty Interests In Texas, Christopher S. Kulander

SMU Law Review

A sporadic series of opinions dating back seven decades has incrementally established that, in Texas, the executive has no authority to pool the royalty or nonexecutive mineral interest covered by an oil and gas lease. Conversely, the owners of nonexecutive interests do have a choice whether or not to ratify leases that purport to cover their interest. This state of the law arose first from cases involving royalty apportionment and community leases, then drawing in nonexecutive interests, before finally establishing the privileged position of freestanding royalty and nonexecutive mineral interests. Texas should instead follow the lead of Louisiana and West …

The New Oil And Gas Governance, Tara K. Righetti, Hannah Jacobs Wiseman, James W. Coleman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

As technologies change and the scale of human activity grows, so too does the law. The surge of oil and gas production in the United States, spurred by hydraulic fracturing in shale formations, has fomented a sea change in oil and gas law, substantially infusing this area with more complex environmental and property principles. Widespread demands for legal and policy-based solutions to the environmental and social impacts of oil production and fracking have transformed the field from one focused on maximizing fossil fuel production into one of environmental conservation. This is dramatically demonstrated by sweeping Colorado legislation in 2019, changes …

Rebuilding The Texas Railroad Commission, James W. Coleman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article explains how the Railroad Commission of Texas became the world’s most prominent oil and gas regulator and how it can become the world’s role model again. It explains how the Railroad Commission built the world’s modern oil and gas industry by stopping oil and gas waste and ensuring stable prices. And it describes the crisis now facing the industry—overproduction of oil and gas is wasting resources that will be worth more in the future. The United States is emerging from the biggest oil and gas boom that the world has ever seen and its production now dwarfs that …

The Third Age Of Oil And Gas Law, James W. Coleman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

History’s biggest oil boom is happening right now, in the United States, ushering in the third age of oil and gas law. The first age of oil and gas law also began in the United States a century ago when landowners and oil companies developed the oil and gas lease. The lease made the modern oil and gas industry possible and soon spread as the model for development around the world. In the second age of oil and gas law, landowners and nations across the globe developed new legal agreements that improved upon the lease and won these resource owners …

Oil, Gas, And Mineral Law, Richard F. Brown

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

Oil, Gas, And Mineral Law, John F. Brown

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

The Enforceability Of Consent-To-Assign Provisions In Texas Oil And Gas Leases, T. Ray Guy, Jason Wright

SMU Law Review

Oil and gas leases are unique instruments that, on their face, appear to be contracts or traditional landlord–tenant leases. Indeed, landowners often desire to have them treated as such by including provisions giving a lessor power to limit or control any assignment of the lease. Typically, this takes the form of a consent-to-assign provision seen in many types of ordinary contracts and leases. In Texas, however, an oil gas lease actually conveys a fee simple property interest; and property law, far more than contract or landlord–tenant law, greatly disfavors any restraint that acts to restrict the free transferability (or “alienation”) …

Oil, Gas And Mineral Law, Richard F. Brown

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

Public-Private Financed Road Infrastructure Development In North-Central Region Of Nigeria, Adamu Mudi, John S. Lowe, David Manase

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The development and provision of road infrastructure in Nigeria has primarily been through the traditional forms of procurement strategies by the federal, state and local governments through budgetary allocations and door-financed loans and grants this thereby leaves the Nigerian road sector in a precarious situation. In recent time, with the demand for more road infrastructure arising from the population explosion and urban-ruralmigration coupled with the financial crisis experienced by the Federal Government resulting from globaleconomic and financial crisis the Federal Government of Nigeria therefore sought to involve the private sectors in the development of road infrastructure facilities via Public-Private Partnerships …

Some Recurring Issues In Operating Agreements And What Aapl's Drafting Committee Might Do About Them, John S. Lowe

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The inherent inefficiency of reinventing the wheel for every drilling venture led to the development of the first American Association of Professional Landmen (AAPL) Form 610 Model Form Operating Agreement in 1956 (AAPL Form 610-1956). Revised forms followed in 1977, 1982, and 1989. The AAPL model forms have become the standard in the United States, and will be the focus of this chapter. The AAPL has begun the process of revising the AAPL Form 610-1989 Model Form Operating Agreement (AAPL Form 610-1989),19 and over the next couple of years everyone active in the industry likely will find themselves discussing what …

Flowback: Federal Regulation Of Wastewater From Hydraulic Fracturing, Jeffrey M. Gaba

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Natural gas produced through hydraulic fracturing remains a critical, and controversial, component of U.S. energy production. A key environmental issue associated with fracking is the management and disposal of the enormous quantities of wastewater generated in the process.

Substantial federal authority exists to regulate fracking wastewater under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Clean Water Act. Regulation under RCRA, however, depends on classification of the wastewater as a RCRA “hazardous waste.” Although EPA has generally exempted oil and gas wastes, including fracking wastewater, from classification as a RCRA hazardous waste, it appears that fracking wastewater would not generally …

The Future Of Oil And Gas Law, John S. Lowe

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Author’s thesis is simple: Oil and gas jurisprudence has a bright future. We live in a hydrocarbons world, and our economic system is not going to change dramatically overnight; we will continue to live in a world powered and heated by hydrocarbons for at least the next twenty years. In fact, world demand for oil and gas is likely to increase substantially. From the turn of the twenty-first century until mid-2008, the world watched as oil prices first inched upwards and then surged. The high energy costs that energized us until a year and a half ago (and that appear …

Lease Termination Issues, John S. Lowe

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Farmout Agreements And Related Issues, John S. Lowe

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

The Lessee's Right Of Free Use Of Produced Substances: New Wine In Old Bottles, John S. Lowe

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The move in the United States to restructure the electric power industry will present the oil and gas industry with synergistic opportunities that have been widely discussed in the trade press. The commentary has focused, however, upon competition in the public utility industry and the effects of the wave of mergers that increased competition is likely to cause.

This paper will explore an incidental benefit presented to oil and gas producers by the increased flexibility of electric distribution companies - the possibility that oil or gas produced from a property can be traded, royalty free, for electricity or other services, …

The Easement Of The Mineral Estate For Surface Use: An Analysis Of Its Rationale, Status, And Prospects, John S. Lowe

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

A fundamental principle of United States property law is that the right to extract minerals can be severed from the bundle of rights that constitutes property ownership. Where the mineral interest has been severed from the surface interest, the courts have recognized an implied easement burdening the surface interest and benefiting the mineral interest to use the surface in such manners and locations as may be reasonably necessary to obtain minerals from the property. Common law rules must be reexamined constantly to determine whether the rationales that led to their recognition still apply, however, for the customs and expectations are …

Principles Of Energy Policy, John S. Lowe

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Energy policy has been at the center of American political rhetoric since the early 1970s. Twenty years, five presidents and ten Congresses later, however, the United States still has no coherent energy policy. Why has development of a coherent energy policy proved so difficult for the United States, when other democratic nations have been able to move so much faster?

The author suggests that the root of the problem has been an attitude, an expectation of plenty. When colonists first came to what is now the United States, they found a new world with what seemed to them infinite amounts …

The Anatomy And Preparation Of Ocs Farmout Agreements, John S. Lowe

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Oil and gas farmout agreements are important devices in spreading the risks of oil and gas exploration and development on the Outer Continental Shelf, as well as in onshore operations. In fact, because both the costs and risks (as well as the rewards) of offshore development are greater than those usually associated with onshore operations, oil and gas farmout agreements may play a more important role in operations on the Outer Continental Shelf than in onshore operations. The structure of an Outer Continental Shelf farmout agreement does not differ substantially from that of its onshore counterpart. The function of farmout …

Gas Contracting: The Lessons Of The Seventies, John S. Lowe

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Current Lease And Royalty Problems In The Gas Industry, John S. Lowe

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Negotiating Oil And Gas Leases For The Lessee, John S. Lowe

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Negotiating Oil And Gas Leases For The Lessee, John S. Lowe

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

The Meaning Of Cessation Of Production: Hoyt V. Continental Oil, John S. Lowe

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Ohio Oil And Gas Conservation Law--The First Ten Years (1965-1975), J. Richard Emens, John S. Lowe

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.