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June 08, 2026
EASTLAND, Texas — A Texas appellate panel has reversed and remanded a summary judgment ruling in favor of an energy company in a breach of contract case, ruling that a genuine issue of material fact exists regarding the ownership of overriding royalty interests (ORRIs) two brothers claim they inherited from their father.
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June 08, 2026
SEATTLE — In a reply brief supporting dismissal of a lawsuit challenging President Donald J. Trump’s executive order titled “Declaring a National Energy Emergency,” Trump and the other federal defendants argue that the case in Washington federal court should be dismissed because the states that brought the suit lack standing and their amended complaint is “an attack on guidance and policy documents that do not, in and of themselves, injure the states.”
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June 05, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Environmental groups filed a second amended complaint against Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and others on June 4 after a California federal judge dismissed their previous complaint for lack of jurisdiction and lack of standing but gave them “one more chance” to remedy those deficiencies related to allegations that the defendants violated federal law with regard to offshore oil and gas activities at the Santa Ynez Unit (SYU).
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June 05, 2026
BISMARCK, N.D. — A federal judge in North Dakota has upheld the dismissal of Prima Exploration Inc.’s challenge to a decades-old Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) lease determination, ruling that the company lacked standing to pursue its claims because it could not establish a legally protected interest in the disputed oil and gas lease.
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June 04, 2026
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — An Ohio appellate panel has ruled that a hydraulic fracturing lease dispute between a fracking operator and multiple leaseholders was not governed by an arbitration provision in the leases because the leaseholders’ claims against the fracking company pertained to actions it took after the leases had expired; therefore, the fracking company could not assert any rights that would have applied under an ongoing lease.
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June 04, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel has reversed a lower court and held that the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act (NPRPA) does not expressly preempt an Alaska statute that allowed a state commission to release data about an oil company’s wells in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A).
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June 04, 2026
SAN ANTONIO — Based on language in a 1937 deed, a divided Texas appellate panel ruled that mineral interest owners had a nonexecutive mineral interest with a floating royalty and not a fixed nonparticipating royalty interest (NPRI) because, despite a history of mistaken payments and title treatment, the deed’s construction remained in effect. The majority also rejected alternative doctrines related to mineral ownership.
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June 03, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Ruling that hydraulic fracturing proponents were “unlikely to succeed” on appeal, a federal judge in the District of Columbia has denied motions to stay a long-running dispute over federal fracking permits pending appeal of the court’s February ruling that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it approved permits for an oil and gas development project in Wyoming.
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June 03, 2026
ALBANY, N.Y. — Property owners have filed an amended complaint in New York federal court seeking to overturn the state’s ban on hydraulic fracturing, arguing that it “unfairly requires property owners to bear the burden of the State’s environmental policies” and contending that it constitutes a taking of private property that violates the U.S. Constitution.
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June 02, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California has denied a state agency’s request for a preliminary injunction against the operators of an oil pipeline, ruling that the agency “manifestly failed” to show that it would suffer irreparable harm without preliminary injunctive relief as it seeks to stop the companies from transporting oil using an existing pipeline that runs through a state park.
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May 20, 2026
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A federal judge in Ohio has issued a mixed ruling in a complex and long-running mineral rights class action dispute, partially granting and partially denying multiple pretrial evidentiary motions by both landowners and oil and gas companies. The judge allowed the parties to introduce evidence related to the ambiguity of the language in the leases at issue but excluded evidence concerning settlement discussions and barred references to certain separate lawsuits, including an overturned Ohio verdict.
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May 11, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), through its Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office (HGEO), announced May 8 that it will invest $36 million in federal funding for the University of North Dakota’s Energy & Environmental Research Center to advance the commercial deployment of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies in the Bakken shale formation.
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May 11, 2026
SAN ANTONIO — A Texas appeals panel granted oil and gas company EOG Resources Inc.’s motion for a writ of mandamus in a discovery dispute pertaining to a long-running mineral rights case, ruling that the record does not support a finding that EOG waived its attorney-client privilege and holding that the trial court abused its discretion by ordering the disclosure of privileged items.
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May 08, 2026
SALT LAKE CITY — A contractor has filed notice that it is appealing to the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals a Utah federal judge’s dismissal of his claims that a Native American tribe breached its agreement with him in a longstanding and complex dispute over revenue the contractor said he was owed for work he performed pursuant to oil and gas leases on tribal lands. The notice was filed following a judge’s denial of the contractor’s motion to reconsider the dismissal ruling.
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May 08, 2026
LOS ANGELES — The U.S. government and pipeline operators have filed briefs in California federal court seeking to terminate a 2020 consent decree that resolved a dispute over damages from a 2015 oil spill on a beach near Santa Barbara, Calif. The government argues that the consent decree should be terminated or modified because the pipeline companies that were parties to the consent decree have complied with its terms.
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May 08, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana ruled that an energy investment fund owes damages to an oil and gas company for $1,493,418.29 in unpaid operating expenses related to federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico because the language of the operating agreements did not contain language releasing the investment fund from liability even though it had assigned its interests in the leases to another party.
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May 07, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) and an affiliated agency have filed an answer in District of Columbia federal court denying a Colorado county’s allegations that the agencies violated federal laws when they authorized an amended right of way that would allow trains carrying oil obtained by hydraulic fracturing in the Uinta Basin in Utah to travel through the county.
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May 06, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — The energy company XTO Energy Inc. has filed a response brief asking the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to affirm a lower court’s decision that ruled that a Pugh clause in a mineral lease did not apply to the compulsory unitization of wells. XTO says that when a leasehold is compelled to be unitized by the Louisiana Commissioner of Conservation, a Pugh clause must unambiguously provide that it applies to compulsory units.
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May 06, 2026
DENVER — A divided panel of the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed and remanded a lower court’s ruling in a royalty dispute between an energy company and the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) related to gas production under a federal lease. The majority said that an order by the DOI that disallowed certain deductions from royalty payments was “arbitrary and capricious” and reversed the lower court’s decision affirming the order.
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May 05, 2026
LOS ANGELES — The state of California has moved in California federal court seeking a preliminary injunction and a stay of an order issued by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright that directed Sable Offshore Corp. to resume operating the Santa Ynez Unit (SYU) and the Santa Ynez Pipeline System (SYPS) under the Defense Production Act (DPA), arguing that nothing in the DPA permits a federal official to order a company to act in defiance of generally applicable state laws.
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April 22, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a unanimous opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court on April 22 ruled that because the federal removal statute’s “text, structure, and context are inconsistent with equitable tolling,” Enbridge Energy LP’s removal to federal court of a lawsuit brought by the Michigan attorney general that sought to shut down a pipeline was untimely.
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April 16, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald J. Trump, citing national security reasons, issued nine memoranda on April 15 granting permits that authorize Enbridge Inc., the owner of multiple pipelines, to “construct, connect, operate and maintain” pipelines for the transport of oil and petroleum products at the international border between the United States and Canada in North Dakota and Michigan.
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April 13, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A mineral rights holding company has filed an opening appeal brief in the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals arguing that a lower court erred when it ruled that a Pugh clause in a mineral lease did not apply to the compulsory unitization of wells because the Louisiana Supreme Court has ruled that any unqualified reference to “pooled unit or units” includes voluntary and compulsory units.
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April 13, 2026
GREELEY, Colo. — A hydraulic fracturing company has sued in Colorado state court two companies that operate a landfill, arguing that they are in violation of agreements reached between the parties because they have begun the process of annexing a portion of the land covered by the agreements to a nearby town and they have applied to rezone the property.
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April 10, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Environmental groups and the state of California have filed opening briefs in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals arguing that orders issued by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) that restarted operation of the Las Flores Pipelines violate several federal laws and exceeded the agency’s authority.