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Archive for the ‘Bankruptcy or Contamination Bonds’ Category

Bankruptcy in the Bakken

Posted on: July 21st, 2020
by David Ganje

Oil and gas producers and suppliers hit with lower prices, oversupply of their product and the pandemic have been filing bankruptcy petitions at historically high levels. The filing numbers for April through June of this year are almost twice the fling numbers of the first quarter of 2020.

Whiting Petroleum, a big producer in the Bakken, filed for Chapter 11 in April and Chesapeake in June. They will not be alone on the bankruptcy docket. A bankruptcy filing, however, is not the same as a “funeral.” People believe what they want to believe. When I taught bankruptcy law, one of the harder things to get across to the students was the fact that a bankruptcy filing is not automatically “the end.” Nevertheless, several of the students came into the class carrying that attitude. One should keep in mind even if a liquidation bankruptcy case is filed, unless there is an abandonment of the wells, oil and gas production often continues. The particular chapter of the bankruptcy code filing, state property law, as well as state and federal regulations all affect a bankruptcy case. You have as many facets to a bankruptcy case as there are facets on a movie star’s wedding ring.

In this piece I discuss the impact of a bankruptcy filing on the typical lessor (usually property owner) and royalty holder. First let us review a couple of things to watch for. If you are the lessor or royalty holder and think a producer may be a bankruptcy candidate, there are steps that can be taken. Your attorney can access the so-called watch list as well as access public records for delisted public companies. And a slow or nonpayment of royalties is also a red flag. Do not panic if a bankruptcy filing occurs. A lessor and royalty holder should put his energy into keeping good paperwork and records. This will make a bankruptcy experience somewhat more tolerable.

Property rights created by an oil and gas lease are treated differently in the various states. In North Dakota the oil and gas lease give the lessor a real property interest with real property rights. According to the 1986 North Dakota Supreme Court case Nantt v. Puckett Energy Company, “[o]il and gas leases are interests in real property” and have been considered such since 1951. Although an oil and gas lease is not a lease in a typical landlord and tenant sense, in North Dakota, an oil and gas lease is treated under bankruptcy law as an “unexpired lease.”

Many operators who file for bankruptcy are in arrears on royalty payments. A recent North Dakota law allows a royalty holder to file a security lien when the royalty has not been paid when due. The royalty owner must file the lien with the state and record the lien in the county where the well is located within 90 days of production to claim the lien. With good records and timely filing and recording, mineral interest owners can gain a secured position in a bankruptcy proceeding. This increases a royalty holder’s chances of a recovery because secured creditors are paid before unsecured creditors.

In a reorganization bankruptcy, the filing debtor must either assume (agree to be obligated under) or reject an unexpired oil and gas lease as is. A debtor may not accept only the favorable parts of a lease. If the oil and gas lease is assumed and not in default, the royalty holder in assured under the law that the terms of the lease are to be followed. If an oil and gas lease is in default, the debtor must cure the default in order to keep the lease. Therefore, if a bankrupt debtor is delinquent on royalty payments, the debtor must pay the back royalties if they want to assume the lease. However, the bankruptcy court must approve any assumption of a lease. A bankruptcy court will look to whether the lease is a valuable asset to the debtor and whether its preservation is sufficiently important. A royalty holder or lessor may also request that the court order the debtor to decide whether to accept or reject an oil and gas lease within a specified time.

If a debtor elects to reject an oil and gas lease, the lease is no longer valid, and the mineral interest is again available on the open market. Following a bankruptcy filing, a royalty holder or lessor may find themselves with the new option of leasing to a different producer who bought the assets of the bankrupt debtor. Sometimes good. Sometimes bad. Another way this could happen is if a producer is in default of the lease agreement. Under North Dakota law the obligation to pay royalties is “of the essence” in an oil and gas lease and that breach of the obligation “may constitute grounds for cancellation of the lease.” If a mineral owner shows a bankruptcy court that equity requires it, the court may cancel the contract and the mineral owner may then lease to another party. In addition to the statute, some lease agreements contain a provision allowing a landowner to terminate the lease under certain conditions. When I look at a good number of leases that owners, farmers and ranchers bring in I do not often find such a clause. But the clause gives the lessor more control regarding cancellation.

David Ganje practices law in the area of natural resources, environmental and commercial law with Ganje Law Office. His website is Lexenergy.net.

David L Ganje
Ganje Law Offices
Web: lexenergy.net

605 385 0330

davidganje@ganjelaw.com

Workouts and Turnarounds before Bankruptcies – 2016

Posted on: August 24th, 2016
by David Ganje

Current bankruptcies are not foreign to the oil patch when the inevitable economic cycles in oil and gas show bankruptcy numbers increasing in the Bakken. There have been two significant prior economic down-cycles in my career that have caused a spike in bankruptcy filings. When I taught bankruptcy law I used a medical analogy: I told the young scholars that bankruptcy filing is akin to surgery, and surgery should always be treated as the last option. In the medical field, a reasonable first option is an antibiotic. Here, the antibiotic is a ‘workout’ or a ‘turnaround,’ each of which are bankruptcy alternatives. These alternatives have value and should be attempted by both creditors and debtors as a viable option, not just a throwaway line. I have successfully represented debtors and creditors in turnarounds and workouts. Resolving “stressed-business” issues out of court makes sense when the option is there.

Financial restructuring and workouts involve working closely with a business’s creditors to create, or ‘workout,’ a plan (often a written contract) to restructure business debts while allowing the business to remain viable. This process allows the business entity to negotiate its debts in a way that retains profitability without involving the court system. This is not as difficult as it might sound – creditors often share the same objective of returning a financially stressed business to good financial health in order to ensure their debts are paid.

A ‘turnaround’ is a separate process from a workout. It may also use the availability of restructuring and workouts, but a turnaround has several other components. A turnaround will generally restructure operational aspects of the business. This may be the solution when the problem lies deeper in the company than lack of cash flow. Where a creditor will not restructure the debts owed to it, a turnaround will be utilized to find alternative financing or new ownership. Another possibility in a turnaround is the sale of ownership or a portion of ownership, which can provide liquidity at the expense of a change of control of the business.

If the company’s goal is to continue in business, particularly under current ownership, then a creditor or a lender workout should be considered. If new ownership, or a sale of the business in whole or in part, is an acceptable outcome so long as the business is preserved as a going concern, a turnaround can be considered as well.

The process of financial restructuring and negotiating a workout with business creditors is something that should be considered to avoid the expenses and bureaucracy related to a bankruptcy proceeding. The chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization process is expensive and time consuming. The goal of business turnarounds or financial restructuring is to provide a cost effective approach by way of a ‘non judicial/non bankruptcy’ business reorganization, to restructure business debts.
Courtship and finances have something closely in common: timing is everything. When a business is in a stressed situation, neither the business nor its creditors should go in stand-by mode. Negotiations should begin immediately. In both the workout and turnaround, all parties must agree to the terms; both are matters of serious negotiation to be done with all deliberate speed. Bankruptcy proceedings are not the only way to save a business – sometimes a well-prescribed antibiotic can halt the damage and let the healing begin.

Financial assurances by operators

Posted on: June 14th, 2016
by David Ganje

Business projects involving some type of government oversight are usually regulated because of a project’s significant environmental or property rights impact.  The purpose of regulation is to safeguard the public in the event of a problem arising from such a project. End-of life decommissioning, reclamation, contamination are all typical contingency events.  Proper planning, evolving around the full life of a proposed project, is key.  But government is not always well endowed with the skills of planning and foresight.
 
No owner, officer or director of a business likes to consider the mortality of a business project.  Even more challenging are government regulators who oversee a project.  Regulators do not always require good exit planning or end-of-business planning for regulated projects. This shortcoming is shown when one considers a government agency’s duty to require a financially viable exit plan. It might be a mining project, a wind farm or a pipeline.  One need only look at existing requirements for decommissioning a project, or for reclaiming the property at the end of the life of a project. By way of example, in four different General Accountability Office public reports over the years, the GAO was critical of several federal agencies ability to set or determine such things as the costs of reclamation for a project.

Bonds, deposit accounts and self-funding are some of the ways that an operator provides its legal obligation for end-of-life financial assurances. These financial submissions are, in my view, often inadequate.

A couple of recent experiences in South Dakota spotlight this problem. A few years back a state-licensed grain warehouse (in the old days we called them grain elevators) by the name of Anderson Seed Company went belly up. Authority for setting bonds was then and is now given to the SD PUC. The bond for Anderson had been set at $100,000. However, $2.6 million in claims were lost. The insolvency of the company resulted in a little over 4 cents on the dollar paid back to those South Dakota parties who lost money in the insolvency. The setting of the bond was inadequate. The payout to the innocent grain sellers/producers was inadequate. The end-of-life planning was not well done. This experience resulted in a change in the law, but that change is itself an incomplete effort at planning project end-of-life contingencies. The second example is the very recent oil well breakdown near the town of Wasta. A drill bit broke part way down an oil well. This break necessitates the plugging of the well to protect aquifers. But the operator has run out of money. The operator was required by the state to put up a nominal bond of $120,000 for each well for which it had obtained a permit. According to a recent news article, the state DENR reported that the bond money was not enough to address this problem. The official stated that the cost could be $2 million because of the broken bit and the 150 feet of drill pipe that remain in the hole about a mile into the earth.

Board members and agency staff are often appointed to their positions because of their expertise and training in geology, law, hydrology, engineering and the like. Agency staff and appointed board members often have expertise dealing with normal board matters including mining permit applications, water rights disputes and similar issues.  It is unusual however for even a large agency to have expertise on financial qualification matters that must be designated by the agency and directed to the operator who is then obligated to provide the agency with end-of-project planning or safety assurances. Further, a regulatory system that sets a ‘statutory amount’ for this type of bonding may be too simple a solution.

A state official has stated that we don’t have a “broken system” in South Dakota. That is not the issue. The issue is not whether lots of bonds are liquidated on a regular basis. The whole system is not broken. The issue at hand is, did the called-in bond do what it was supposed to do when an insolvency, bankruptcy or contamination occured?

I have previously put before the public a suggestion that will address some of these problems.  This recommendation should be considered by the state legislature. My recommendation:  an agency with authority over an operator’s financial assurance requirements shall evaluate in writing all financial assurance proposals using an agency-designated non-party (an outside consultant) with recognized experience on the matter of providing financial assurance.  A completed report and recommendation by an outside consultant shall be a condition before granting or maintaining a permit or license. The costs incurred by the agency in contracting with the independent outside consultant shall be paid by the operator.

Op-ed available at the Argus Leader

David Ganje practices law in the area of natural resources, environmental and commercial law in South Dakota and North Dakota. His website is Lexenergy.net