The fourth installment on the climate change debate by Gray Reed energy partner Paul Yale looks at criticisms of Bjorn Lomborg’s False Alarm: How Climate Panic Costs Us Billions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet. These short summaries can’t do justice to Paul’s articles, or the books themselves for that matter. I encourage you to read them. Lomborg’s criticism of the Paris Climate Agreement is that even if the signators undertook all…

Co-author Brittany Blakey The central issue in the Texas case of Cook v. Cimarex Energy Co.: Did Cook grant Cimarex a right of way across Cook’s land to the location of two Cimarex wells. No he didn’t. Reversing the trial court, the court of appeals concluded that two Contracts of Release were ambiguous. Neither party was entitled to summary judgment, so its back to the Ochilltree County courthouse for a large helping of he-said-she-said.…

Co-author Rusty Tucker Bell v. Midway Petroleum Grp., L.P., was a trespass to try title action, suit to quiet title for possession of a land, and a counterclaim for title by adverse possession. There are several … … Takeaways A Mother Hubbard Clause can save a deed in which the property description fails to satisfy the Statute of Frauds. Testimony to establish adverse possession must be of such character as to indicate unmistakably an assertion…

Co-author Brittany Blakey Texas lien law in some cases does not require the filing of a financing statement for priority perfection. However, as you might have learned in In re First River Energy, the Delaware Uniform Commercial Code did not recognize the priority of Texas producers’ unfiled, unperfected security interests in proceeds under Texas Business and Commerce Code Section 9.343. In contrast, Oklahoma Producers prevailed because the Oklahoma Lien Act in 2010 cured a defect…

Co-author Rusty Tucker As Humpty Dumpty would have said to Alice if he were Justice Dumpty of the Texas Supreme Court, the term means whatever the parties to an oil and gas lease say it means, neither more nor less. In Sundown Energy LP, et al. v. HJSA No. 3, Ltd. P’ship  the term “drilling operations” meant that activities other than spudding-in new wells were sufficient to satisfy a continuous operations clause. The lease…

Co-author Rusty Tucker What is the standard of care imposed by the Model Form JOA on the well operator?  Crimson Exploration Op., Inc. v. BPX Op. Co. gives us the answer, and it is no surprise. Background Under a Model Form JOA, BPX as operator and Crimson and other non-operators drilled the McCarn A1H well. After a problem that prevented further drilling the parties agreed to plug and abandon the well. BPX billed Crimson…

In his third installment on the climate change debate, Gray Reed energy partner Paul Yale discusses the assertions of Bjorn Lomborg in his book False Alarm: Lomborg relies on two major sources: Reports from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the US Government’s National Climate Assessment. He says their forecasts about temperatures at the end of the 21st century assume nothing will be done to mitigate CO2 increases. Emissions are declining in the developed…