Of all the contracts used in the oil and gas industry, none is as important as the oil and gas lease. It is the foundational instrument in oil and gas and a required prerequisite to development for those who do not own the mineral estate. Its uniqueness arises in that unlike most other oil and...

In 2019, production on federal lands comprised 40% of domestic coal, 22% of domestic oil, and 12% of domestic natural gas production. Currently, the federal fossil fuel leasing program does not consider the climate costs of burning federal fossil fuels. One way to do so is through a climate...

Implied covenants are obligations that are not expressly imposed by a contract, but which courts nevertheless find are binding on one or more parties to the contract. Courts routinely hold that oil and gas lessees are bound by several implied covenants. This Article reviews the various implied...

Oil and gas leases between mineral owners and extraction firms ubiquitously include royalty and primary term clauses. The royalty denotes the share of revenue that is paid to the mineral owner, and the primary term specifies the date by which the firm must complete a well, lest it lose the...

This paper extends the theory of legal cartels to affiliated private value and common value environments, and applies the theory to explain joint bidding patterns in U.S. federal government offshore oil and gas lease auctions. We show that efficient collusion is always possible in private value...

Fossil fuel development on federal lands accounts for 24% of all U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. These emissions can be reduced significantly by requiring federal oil and gas development activity to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has authority...

Given the mission of the international oil companies which is to find, develop, refine and market hydrocarbon resource in a fashion that achieves the highest economic returns to the owners coupled with the competitiveness of attracting international investment capital, it follows then that oil...

In 2019, production on federal lands comprised 40% of domestic coal, 22% of domestic oil, and 12% of domestic natural gas production. Currently, the federal fossil fuel leasing program does not consider the climate costs of burning federal fossil fuels. One way to do so is through a climate...

Oil and gas leases between mineral owners and extraction firms ubiquitously include royalty and primary term clauses. The royalty denotes the share of revenue that is paid to the mineral owner, and the primary term specifies the date by which the firm must complete a well, lest it lose the...

This paper compares outcomes from informally negotiated oil and gas leases to those awarded via centralized auction. We use data on all contractual characteristics and production outcomes for a class of state-owned mineral rights overlying newly discovered shale formations in Texas, between 2005...

This paper compares outcomes from informally negotiated oil and gas leases to those awarded via centralized auction. We focus on Texas, where legislative decisions in the early twentieth century assigned thousands of proximate parcels to different mineral allocation mechanisms. We show that...

This paper compares outcomes from informally negotiated oil and gas leases to those awarded via centralized auction. We focus on Texas, where legislative decisions in the early twentieth century assigned thousands of proximate parcels to different mineral allocation mechanisms. We show that...

This study aims to assess Myanmar’s upstream petroleum fiscal regimes by applying comprehensive indicators to rank the level of attractiveness of Myanmar. The indicators include government take (GT), front loading index (FLI), and composite score (CS). The decision maker’s attitude for GT...

Natural resources have the transformational potential to support economic and political stability as well as contribute to national prosperity and economic development. However, in countries dependent upon natural resource sectors, poor management of these sectors often contributes to...

No matter how hard employees work, an organization is in real trouble if strategic decisions are not made effectively. Doing the right things (effectiveness) is more important than doing things right (efficiency). Creating Shared Value to get Social License to Operate in the Extractive Industry...

The traditional Texas oil and gas lease expressly allowed the operator to freely transfer the working interest in the lease. These transfers, however, have occasionally been made to sketchy operators who are not attentive to the rights of the surface estate owner. Consequently, more and more...

Fulfilling its campaign promise, the new NDP government announced a review of Alberta's royalty framework in June 2015. The province receives royalty revenue from three main sources – natural gas, crude oil, and oil sands. Since the 2009-10 fiscal year the largest contributor to Alberta's...

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,...

Concerns about high rates of government corruption in resource rich countries have led transparency advocates to urge oil and gas firms to disclose payments to host governments for natural resources. Transparency, they argue, can increase government accountability and mitigate corruption....

This paper explains why a restraint on alienation within an oil and gas lease should be enforceable. The reasons that privately-imposed restraints on alienation are sometimes invalidated simply do not apply to a restraint within an oil and gas lease. Rather, the relationship created by an oil...

We identify a setting in which firms are required to disclose discounted cash flow (DCF) estimates relating to the value of their primary assets. ASC 932 (formerly SFAS No. 69) has mandated DCF disclosures for proved oil and gas reserves since 1982, and these reserves constitute the primary...

The combining of horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing unleashed a boom in oil and natural gas production in the US. This technological shift interacts with local geology to create an exogenous shock to county income and employment. We measure the effects of these shocks within the county...

The combining of horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing unleashed a boom in oil and natural gas production in the US. This technological shift interacts with local geology to create an exogenous shock to county income and employment. We measure the effects of these shocks within the county...