Drafting a Texas Oil and Gas Lease to Ensure Enforceability of a Consent-to-Assign Clause : How to Make an Oil and Gas ‘Lease’ a Lease

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 landowners are now seeking to protect themselves by negotiating for a clause in the lease that requires the landowner's consent before a transfer occurs. This paper advises Texas attorneys as to how to draft the duration clause of the oil and gas lease so as facilitate judicial acceptance of the consent-to-transfer clause