Mengden v. Peninsula Production Co.

534 S.W.2d 749, 53 Oil & Gas Rep. 561, 1976 Tex. App. LEXIS 2585
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 11, 1976
DocketNo. 915
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 534 S.W.2d 749 (Mengden v. Peninsula Production Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mengden v. Peninsula Production Co., 534 S.W.2d 749, 53 Oil & Gas Rep. 561, 1976 Tex. App. LEXIS 2585 (Tex. Ct. App. 1976).

Opinion

DUNAGAN, Chief Justice.

This suit involves the pooling provisions of two mineral leases and the farmout agreements by which the leases were assigned. Walter H. Mengden, Sr., the as-signee, and Peninsula Production Co., et al., the successors in interest of the assignors, sought declaratory judgments to determine whether Peninsula’s reversionary interest under the farmout agreements had become effective. The trial court, without the aid of a jury and on undisputed facts, decreed that this reversion had occurred as to the only part of the leased premises from which production had been obtained. Mengden appealed from that judgment. We affirm that judgment.

The two leases (hereinafter individually referred to as the “A” or “B” lease) covered adjacent tracts of 1713.2 acres each. The lease agreements contained the usual and customary provisions, including a pooling provision. Part of the “A” lease and all of the “B” lease were assigned to Mengden in two farmout agreements by the predecessors in interest of Peninsula. The “Miltex” farmout covered 640 acres of the “A” lease and the “Baria” farmout covered the entire 1713.2 acre “B” lease.

The Miltex and Baria farmout agreements each provided that Mengden’s interest in Vi of the gas rights would terminate when he had recovered, after taxes on production accruing to the net working interests, certain enumerated costs and expenses. The Miltex farmout agreement provided that “ . . .if you complete any gas well or wells in the Escondido Sand under such lease premises then in lieu of the aforerecited recovery of costs incurred thereon you will be entitled to recover $70,-000.00 times the number of such wells on the production accruing to a 49/<s4ths of Vtths net working interest therein from such wells before such assignment terminates in part as aforeprovided for.”

The conditions which existed upon the Miltex and Baria farmouts at the time of this litigation can best be presented by the following plat:

[751]*751

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Related

Mengden v. Peninsula Production Co.
544 S.W.2d 643 (Texas Supreme Court, 1976)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
534 S.W.2d 749, 53 Oil & Gas Rep. 561, 1976 Tex. App. LEXIS 2585, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mengden-v-peninsula-production-co-texapp-1976.