Note:
Ralph A. Midkiff, Phase Severance of Gas Rights from Oil Rights, 63 Texas L. Rev. 133 (2000).
 

Abstract:
This note observes that, surprisingly, there is not a well-settled legal definition of the terms “oil” and “gas”. This creates legal difficulties when contracts bestow ownership of oil and gas interests on different parties without specifying what is meant by “oil” and “gas”. Ralph Midkiff reviews several major kinds of disputes that can arise when oil and gas rights are assigned to different parties, and argues that existing statutory and common law is inadequate to deal with these disagreements. Midkiff then proposes that these disagreements could be usefully resolved by adopting a presumption that would indicate how to construe language that bestows oil and gas rights when those terms are not defined in the agreement itself.