§ 42-144 — Oil and gas well liens.

Any person, corporation, or copartnership who shall, under contract, expressed or implied, with the owner of any leasehold for oil and gas purposes, or the owner of any gas pipeline or oil pipeline, or with the trustee or agent of such owner, perform labor or services, including written contracts for the services of a geologist or petroleum engineer, or furnish material, machinery, and oil well supplies used in the digging, drilling, torpedoing, completing, operating, or repairing of any oil or gas well, or who shall furnish any oil or gas well supplies, or perform any labor in constructing or putting together any of the machinery used in drilling, torpedoing, operating, completing, or repairing of any gas well, or perform any labor upon any oil well supplies, tools, and other articles used in digging, drilling, torpedoing, operating, completing, or repairing any oil or gas well, shall have a lien upon the whole of such leasehold or oil pipeline, or gas pipeline, or lease for oil and gas purposes, the buildings and appurtenances, the proceeds from the sale of oil or gas produced therefrom inuring to the working interest, exempting, however, any valid, bona fide reservations of oil or gas payments or overriding royalty interests executed in good faith and payable out of such working interest, and upon the material and supplies so furnished, and upon any oil well supplies, tools, and other articles used in digging, drilling, torpedoing, operating, completing, or repairing any oil or gas well, and upon the oil or gas well for which they were furnished, and upon all the other oil or gas well fixtures and appliances used in the operating for oil and gas purposes upon the leasehold for which said material and supplies were furnished or labor or services performed. Such lien shall be preferred to all other liens or encumbrances which may attach to or upon said leasehold for gas and oil purposes and upon any oil or gas pipeline, or such oil and gas wells and the material and machinery so furnished and the leasehold for oil and gas purposes and the fixtures and appliances thereon subsequent to the commencement of or the furnishing or putting up of any such machinery or supplies; and such lien shall follow said property and each and every part thereof, and be enforceable against the said property wherever the same may be found; and compliance with the provisions of this article shall constitute constructive notice of the lien claimant's lien to all purchasers and encumbrancers of said property or any part thereof, subsequent to the date of the furnishing of the first item of material or the date of the performance of the first labor or services.

Legislative History

R.L. 1910, § 3865; Laws 1919, c. 258, p. 367, § 2; Laws 1927, c. 42, p. 64, § 1; Laws 1963, c. 226, § 1.