West Virginia- Mining / OIL & Gas

摘要

West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals Reaffirms that Reservation of Interests in "Oil Produced and Saved" and "Consideration for Gas for Each Gas Well Drilled and Producing" Creates Nonparticipating Royalty Interest, and Not Mineral Interest Title examiners in West Virginia have long been vexed by the state's confusing precedents regarding the distinction between mineral interests and royalty interests in oil and gas. Some cases from the early twentieth century seem to suggest that terms like "royalty" were actually synonymous with "minerals" and did not create an interest in the production alone, but by the 1960s, in Davis v. Hardman, 133 S.E.2d 77 (W. Va. 1963), the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals clearly adopted the position that there was a clear distinction between interests in the oil and gas in place and nonparticipating royalty interests. Since that time, the court has not had many opportunities to return to this question.