By Bret Sumner & Jacob Everhart The Big Beautiful Bill or the Reconciliation Act of 2025 (the Act) (House Resolution 1), contains an important provision for upstream oil and natural gas operators on federal lands. This provision directs the Bureau of Land...
The recent Richard v. Marathon Petroleum Corp. decision compels oil and gas operators to adopt rigorous due diligence standards prior to lease acquisitions. The New Mexico Court of Appeals (NMCA) ruled that New Mexico State Land Office (SLO) approved lease assignments...
In Continental Resources, Inc. v. North Dakota Board of University and School Lands, the Eighth Circuit resolved a dispute between North Dakota and the United States over entitlement to royalties from minerals extracted from beneath Lake Sakakawea, and ruled in favor...
In January, the United States Supreme Court decided not to weigh in on a climate change lawsuit between the City of Honolulu and Sunoco. The lawsuit alleges that oil companies made misleading statements about the impacts of their fossil fuel products in creating...
The Royalty Resiliency Act (RRA or Act) requires the Secretary of the Interior, or the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under delegation of the Secretary, to issue all determinations of allocations of production for units and communitization agreements (CA) within 120...
Each year, the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) allows states to determine whether they want to participate in a royalty reporting simplification process, benefiting leaseholders of marginal wells. The process includes ONRR providing a list of qualifying...
