In the continuing dispute between federal offshore lessees and the Department of the Interior over missing price threshold provisions in 1998 and 1999 federal oil and gas leases, MMS announced today that it has signed agreements with BP, ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil Company, Shell, and Walter Oil and Gas Corporation.
In BHP America Petroleum Co. v. Burton, 549 U.S. — (2006), the Supreme Court resolved a legal issue that has been at the center of federal royalty litigation for twenty years: viz., whether 28 U.S.C. § 2415(a), which imposes a 6-year statute of limitations for Government “every action for money damages … founded upon any contract,” applies to administrative royalty payment orders issued by the Minerals Management Service (MMS). The Court held that it does not. Read more . . .
Continue Reading...In Barasich v. Columbia Gulf Transmission, et al., Judge Sarah Vance of the Eastern District of Louisiana dismissed a suit in which plaintiffs claimed that oil and gas production and pipeline companies’ activities in South Louisiana marshes contributed to the destruction wreaked by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The plaintiffs alleged that dredging of pipeline canals and wellsite locations damaged the marshland, thereby weakening a protective barrier against storm surge and increasing the storm damage suffered by citizens of South Louisiana. Judge Vance held that the complaint failed to state a claim under the Louisiana obligations of neighborhood or Louisiana tort law, finding plaintiffs’ claims to be too “attenuated because they are suing for hurricane damage from storm surge allegedly magnified by coastal erosion caused by the canals, not for a direct loss of acreage due to erosion.”
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