A recent decision from the Colorado Court of Appeals (“Court”) could mean a new focus for the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC). On March 23, a three-judge panel issued a split decision in Martinez v. Colo. Oil & Gas Conservation Comm’n, 2017 COA 37, with two of the three Judges rejecting the COGCC’s […]
On Tuesday, April 4, 2017, Judge Stephen P. Friot, United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, dismissed a nationally significant lawsuit brought over earthquakes linked to oil and gas wastewater injection wells on jurisdictional grounds. See Sierra Club v. Chesapeake Operating, LLC, et al., No. CIV-16-134-F (W.D. Okla., Order dated 4/4/2017) (unpublished), […]
A recent Colorado Court of Appeals decision involves two parts of the statutes regarding the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (Commission): the pooling statute and the statute regarding payment of proceeds of production. In Grant Brothers Ranch, LLC v. Antero Resources Piceance Corporation, ___ P.3d __ (2016), 2016 COA 178, the court held that […]
The U.S. Department of Interior recently announced new regulations (effective January 1, 2017) governing how federal royalties on oil and gas produced from federal leases are to be calculated. These regulations make some significant changes on how lessees are to value the production of natural gas from federal leases for the purposes of determining federal […]
The arbitration clause in an oil and gas lease is likely not the most hotly negotiated term or even one that the parties think twice about. However, recent litigation in Pennsylvania should serve as a reminder to lessors and lessees to be aware that a poorly drafted arbitration clause may lead to unwanted litigation. Recently, […]
On September 9, 2016, 30 minutes after winning and stopping the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s (“Sioux” or “Tribe”) request to enjoin the Dakota Access Pipeline (“DAPL”), the Obama administration upended the rule of law. The Departments of Justice, Army and the Interior issued a joint statement that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) “will […]
On August 29, 2016, Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams found that the proponents of Proposed Initiative 75 (Local Government Control of Oil and Gas Development) and Proposed Initiative 78 (Mandatory Setback from Oil and Gas Development) did not collect the requisite number of sufficient signatures to make the November ballot. Mr. Williams also provided […]
It was an interesting week for BLM’s hydraulic fracturing rule first finalized and then immediately challenged on March 26, 2015. On Monday (June 20, 2016), the BLM filed its final brief in the Tenth Circuit arguing that the Wyoming Federal District Court erred when it issued a nationwide injunction of the rule on September 30, […]
An old rule of thumb for title examiners was that a mineral reservation needs to be in the granting clause, not the warranty clause, of a deed to be valid. As the courts have moved to seeking to determine the parties’ intent in a deed, these old rules have been whittled away. A recent Colorado […]
A decision in late April, 2016, by the Colorado Supreme Court, allows deduction of the cost of capital for construction of gas processing and transportation facilities in calculating Colorado severance tax. In BP America Production Company v. Colorado Department of Revenue, 2016 CO 23, 2016 WL 1639829, the Colorado Supreme Court reversed the decision of […]