How to Stop the Transportation of Foreign Gas Across Your Property

By Paul R. Yagelski, Esquire
Rothman Gordon
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

It is not unusual to find a provision in a proposed oil and gas lease that allows an oil and gas company to transport foreign gas across a landowner’s property or to transport gas that is not being produced from the landowner’s property, from property with which the landowner’s property is pooled or unitized or from neighboring and conjointly developed property. If the landowner does not want foreign gas transported across his property, the landowner should negotiate a clause prohibiting this type of transportation. If the landowner does not negotiate such a clause, the landowner may be faced with the type of situation that occurred in Walls v. Repsol Oil and Gas USA, LLC, No.4:20-CV-00782, 2020 WL 5502151 (M.D. Pa. October 11, 2020).

In Walls, a contract dispute occurred between three Pennsylvania landowners (“Landowners”) and a Texas oil and gas company, Repsol Oil and Gas USA, LLC (“Repsol”), as to whether a provision in an oil and gas lease agreement allowed for the use of the Landowners’ property, located in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, for the transportation of foreign gas across the Landowners’ property. On March 12, 2020, the Landowners filed a one-count complaint seeking declaratory judgment against Repsol in the Court of Common Pleas of Tioga County requesting that: (1) Repsol cease using a pipeline to transport gas from property outside the unit with which the Landowners’ land was unitized, the Chicken Hawk Unit, and other non-neighboring lands; (2) remove the pipeline; and (3) abstain from entering the Landowners’ property except to remove the pipeline. Repsol removed the case to Federal District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and at the same time filed a Motion to Dismiss.