Can Reworking a Saltwater Disposal Well Maintain a Lease?
Charles Sartain of Gray Reed & McGraw asks the question: Should the sufficiency of reworking operations under the cessation-of-production clause of an oil and gas lease be limited to the producing well?
In his post in the firm’s Energy & the Law blog, Sartain discusses Crystal River Oil and Gas, LLC et al v. Patton, a suit to terminate an oil and gas lease due to cessation of production.
In the case, a saltwater disposal well servicing a producing became inoperable for a a period in 2011. The appellate court found that the trial court’s prohibition from considering operations on the salt water disposal well was reversible error.