When the oil business started, the main problem was finding the stuff. Colonel (self-promoted) Drake drilled the first oil well in Oil Creek, Pennsylvania. Hence, the smart money was to look for oil along creeks and streams–the era of the creekologists. Well, that did not work out too well, so the next place to look were various lumps and bumps, which were known as anticlines. That worked fine, mostly, and the Spindletop discovery resulted from that geology.

Is a conveyance by or from the “Estate of Joe Jones” or the “Number One Family Trust” a valid conveyance? The brief answer is resounding probably not.

There are several issues that may arise under Texas law regarding the use of the surface by an operator. This edition of Practice Notes discusses several of them, but as usual, note that the matters that follow are based on certain assumptions, most of which involve the precise wording of the oil and gas lease…

If there has been a severance of the surface estate and the mineral estate, and there has been no express statement regarding which estate is to own the water which may be produced from the lands, the Texas Supreme Court has held that water underlying the surface is owned by the owner of the surface…