Once upon a time, before the Haynesville Shale introduced Northwest Louisiana to the concept of a resource play, the search for oil and gas was conducted by many smaller companies. These smaller companies would drill the more traditional prospects, looking for that hidden resevoir of oil or gas. Now, with the HA shale, large companies have aquired enormous leaseholds and effectivly push out the small independents.



I have watched as these small independents have had to go elsewhere in… Continue

Prescription of non use is the most commonly litigated issue concerning mineral sevitudes.



The mineral code provides that prescription commences from the date when the servitude is created.



According to The Mineral Code, a use of a sevitude suffiecient to interupt prescription consists of good faith operations for the discovery and production of minerals. The code reqires proof of three elements to establish good faith.



1. Operations must be commenced… Continue

Louisiana follows the non-ownership theory of oil and gas, thus there is no seperate mineral estate. Any attempts to sell or reserve the ownership of oil and gas results in a Mineral Servitude.



The most important legal consequence of the mineral servitude is that unlike a mineral estate that can be created in perpetuity with no obligation on the owner to use its rights is that a mineral servitude is subject to perscription of non-use for ten years.



Article 21 of the… Continue

I posted this in a disscusion earlier and thought it informative. Please feel free to comment, I will update, add or correct any information as time goes on.



The driving and time aside, I personally believe every landowner should have a copy of the assessors plat for land they own. You can make your trip even more worthwhile by checking to see what they have assesed you for. You can challange your assessment if you feel its too high and many times they will knock a little off just to… Continue