Oil & Gas

Our Oil & Gas Group offers a comprehensive range of services to generation and transmission companies, independent oil and gas producers, major oil and gas producers, oil and gas pipeline companies, salt water and waste disposal companies, and service companies:

Transactions

Our transactional work includes mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures of large energy assets, sale and purchase of oil and gas properties, project financing and refinancing, and complex exploration and farmout agreements.

Regulatory

We advise natural resource and energy companies on contractual matters and compliance with state and federal regulations. We are experienced in securing permits, licenses, and other approvals from state regulatory agencies in various states. In North Dakota, these agencies include the North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC), North Dakota Oil and Gas Division, North Dakota Public Service Commission (PSC), North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), North Dakota Office of The State Tax Commissioner, North Dakota State Water Commission (SWC) and the state engineer, North Dakota Department of Trust Lands, and North Dakota Department of Transportation (NDDOT). We have extensive regulatory experience with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Finally, we frequently work with local boards of county commissioners to secure zoning permits, special and conditional local land use permits, and ordinance variations.

Litigation

We represent oil and gas exploration companies, drilling companies, oil field service companies, pipeline companies, and other businesses in state and federal litigation. Our attorneys provide representation in matters including, among others, real estate and surface use disputes, contract disputes, torts, quiet title actions, declaratory judgment actions, and other legal proceedings between operators and non-operators of oil and gas properties. We represent our clients from inception of a legal dispute through trial, and on appeal if necessary.

Title Examination

We routinely prepare drilling, division order, acquisition, surface, and other types of opinions. Our dedicated group has extensive experience examining complex issues involving riparian lands, railroad rights-of-way, federal lands, BIA lands, spacing units, depth severances, and overlapping spacing units. We work with landmen and abstract companies to ensure we provide a timely product tailored to our client’s needs and preferences. It is our goal to ensure that our clients are well-informed on the obvious and not-so-obvious issues.

Regulatory

• Leading law firm in North Dakota for carbon capture and sequestration projects and permitting.
• Represent top oil and gas producers operating in North Dakota in contested and uncontested administrative proceedings before the North Dakota Industrial Commission, including applications for permits to drill, formation of spacing units, pooling orders, risk penalties, unit formation, secondary recovery units, and well confiscation.
• Intimate knowledge of the North Dakota Siting Act and years of experience representing clients before the North Dakota Public Service Commission in connection with the siting of gas and liquid transmission pipelines and energy conversion facilities.
• Assist clients in the negotiation of settlement agreements with the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality, North Dakota Industrial Commission, North Dakota Public Service Commission and other regulatory agencies resulting in eliminated or reduced fines, penalties and other assessments levied in connection with alleged violations of laws, rules and regulations.

Title

• Prepared hundreds of oil and gas title opinions including original townsites, various metes and bounds outlots, platted subdivisions, numerous railroad mains and spur lines, and other township, municipal and county-related matters in North Dakota.
• Prepared oil and gas title opinions including the Little Missouri River, Yellowstone River, and the Missouri River, both where it remains a free-flowing river and where it is now part of the Garrison Dam reservoir (Lake Sakakawea) in North Dakota.
• Prepared oil and gas title opinions including significant ownership interests contained within secondary recovery/enhanced recovery units in North Dakota.
• Prepared thousands of title opinions for residential, agricultural and commercial properties.
• Reviewed numerous title commitments, surveys, leases, and other related due diligence documentation for energy and corporate transactions.
• Represented individual and corporate clients in all areas of real estate transactions and disputes.

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