PDF Version: Limitations Issues in Oil and Gas Royalty Litigation

Case commented on: Canadian Natural Resources Limited v Jensen Resources Ltd., 2013 ABCA 399

This case involves a geologist’s gross overriding royalty (GORR). The principal issue at trial (see earlier post here) was the question of whether or not the royalty continued as against the property in question when the Crown issued oil sands leases for the oil sands rights in place of the earlier petroleum natural gas leases which were in force when the royalties crystallized. The trial judge held that the royalty did continue against these new leases and the Court of Appeal has confirmed that part of the award.

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PDF Version: Judgment Handed Down in a Complex Petroleum and Natural Gas Lease Case

Case commented on: Stewart Estate v TAQA North Ltd, 2013 ABQB 691

This lengthy (121 page plus appendices) and well-reasoned decision will be essential reading for members of the oil and gas bar in Alberta. Justice Barbara Romaine offers guidance on a number of issues including the importance of having all relevant parties before the Court when seeking a declaration as to lease validity, limitations, the interpretation of the term “lack of or intermittent market” and the term “any cause whatsoever beyond the Lessee’s reasonable control”, and the measure of damages where a lessee produces on a dead lease. Given the length of the decision (much of which is taken up with a careful review of the testimony of expert witnesses) I will limit this post to the above legal questions. There are, however, a number of other issues discussed in the decision that this post does not deal with (e.g. estoppel, leave and licence, champerty and maintenance, etc).

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PDF Version: Eighty Percent Of Success Is Showing Up: Or “How A Pro Se Farmer Won A Default Against The United States In His Suit To Invalidate The Permit For Half Of Keystone Xl (& Why It Probably Won’t Last)”

Case commented on: Bishop v Bostick, 9:13-cv-00082, (E.D. Tex, Nov. 6, 2013).

On April 25, Michael Bishop, a farmer acting pro se, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas to revoke TransCanada’s permit to construct the southern half of the Keystone XL project.  This part of the project, known as the “Gulf Coast Project” or “Phase III”, travels from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast.  Bishop sued the Army Corps of Engineers and its Commanding General, Thomas Bostick, because the Army Corps issued the permit to TransCanada.  The complaint that Bishop filed asked the court to order the Army Corps to revoke Keystone’s permit. Bishop then served this complaint on the Army Corps of Engineers, its officers, and the Attorney General of the United States.

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PDF Version: Ontario Court of Appeal Confirms that the Courts Have Some Residual Jurisdiction Over Natural Gas Storage Matters

Case Commented On: 2195002 Ont. Inc. v Tribute Resources Inc, 2013 ONCA 576

In this decision the Ontario Court of Appeal confirmed the conclusion reached in two separate applications before the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario related to a gas storage matter. For my post on these two decisions see here.

One decision, Tribute Resources v 2195002 Ontario Inc, 2012 ONSC 25 dealt with the jurisdiction of the Superior Court to consider the matter, the argument being that all gas storage issues should be litigated before the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) because of the preclusive clauses in the Ontario Energy Board Act, SO 1998, c.15 and the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal in Snopko v Union Gas Ltd, 2010 ONCA 248, the subject of an earlier post here. A second decision, that of Justice Helen Rady in 21955002 Ontario Inc v Tribute Resources Inc  2012 ONSC 5412, dealt with the substantive question of whether Tribute could claim storage rights on the basis of an oil and gas lease and a unitization agreement or whether its rights were confined to such rights as it held under a gas storage lease which lease the Ontario Court of Appeal in an earlier action held to have expired: Tribute Resources v McKinley Farms, 2010 ONCA 392, also the subject of a previous ABlawg post here.

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