Anadarko Petroleum Corp. v. TRO-X

OPINION

YVONNE T. RODRIGUEZ, Justice

In this oil-and-gas case, we must determine whether a prime lessee retained any interest in a mineral estate after its sub-lessee and the lessors, following a purported breach of the prime leases’ terms and allegedly unbeknownst to the prime lessee, executed new “washout” leases cutting out the prime lessee as a party.

The prime lessee argues that a thirteen-day delay between execution of the new leases and the sub-lessee’s execution of a release of the old leases demonstrated that the lessors intended for the new leases to function temporarily as top leases…