Texas Water Intelligence

Potential Transaction Structures for Produced Water in Texas

Gabriel Collins, “Potential Transaction Structures for Produced Water in Texas,” Texas Water Intelligence™, Water Note #4, 27 April 2017 Produced water ownership transfer is not simply a rehousing of legal liabilities and risks; it also opens the door to harnessing latent economic value. Once produced water has undergone a transfer of title that severs it from…

Oilfield Produced Water Ownership in Texas

Gabriel Collins, J.D., “Oilfield Produced Water Ownership in Texas: Balancing Surface Owners’ Rights and Mineral Owners’ Commercial Objectives,” February 2017, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Center for Energy Studies. Executive Summary –The surface estate owns produced water as a matter of law in Texas. However, if a producer transfers produced water to another party for the…

IMPLEMENTING THREE-DIMENSIONAL GROUNDWATER MANAGEMENT IN A TEXAS GROUNDWATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT

Fulltext available here. Gabriel Collins and Hilmar Blumberg, “Implementing three-dimensional groundwater management in a Texas groundwater conservation district,” Texas Water Journal, Vol. 7, No.1, 2016 (69-81). Executive Summary The Guadalupe County Groundwater Conservation District has implemented a 3-dimensional water management solution that allocates pumping rights based on actual volumes in place under a tract. This…

How Much Can You Sell Brackish Water For in West Texas?

Gabriel Collins, “How Much Can You Sell Brackish Water For in West Texas?,” Texas Water Intelligence™, Water Note #2, 27 June 2016. How much can you sell that brackish water for? As rising oilfield activity and volatile precipitation patterns collide, this is an important question that West Texas landowners will increasingly face. In dry West Texas,…

The Brackish Water Estate in Texas

Oil is Not the Only Multi-Horizon Resource Play in the Permian Basin Oil is not the only multi-horizon resource play in the Permian Basin. Brackish groundwater also increasingly offers landowners a chance to make money from water sales to the oilfield and other consumers while preserving the precious Ogallala Aquifer and other freshwater layers under…

Blue Gold: Commoditize Groundwater and Use Correlative Management to Balance City, Farm, and Frac Water Use in Texas

Texas is increasingly dependent on groundwater supplies due to drought and rapid population and economic growth. The current groundwater law regime of absolute ownership and rule of capture is fundamentally unsustainable. Without reforms, Texas risks a California-style water supply crisis as soon as five to seven years from now. This would threaten millions of Texans’…