Link here.
From the linked article:
The North Dakota Supreme Court said on Thursday that contractual language commonly used in the state to calculate royalties that landowners pocket requires oil producers to pay values determined at the well, rather than higher ones as the oil gets closer to markets.
The opinion by a divided panel is in response to a certified question by a North Dakota federal court to clarify a gray area in state law, which should in turn enable rulings on more than half a dozen related putative class-action lawsuits by property owners who allege oil companies have underpaid them royalties. The Supreme Court said that its determination that royalties are calculated at the well, rather than downstream, may result in the dismissal of the class actions.
Well shoot!! Had my cash cow all lined up.
ReplyDeleteOil companies have been writing contracts and leases for decades. I'm sure they have every angle covered. No one is going to win a lawsuit against casinos in Las Vegas; unlikely one of us is going to win a lawsuit against an oil company.
DeleteIn the big scheme of things, unless you really have a lot of wells, or a lot of income, we're probably not talking about a lot of money. But I don't know.