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Legal N.D. high court says crude oil royalty calculated at well
Sebastien Malo
3 minute read
Sunflowers stalks punctuate the snow in a field near dormant oil drilling rigs which have been stacked in Dickinson, North Dakota January 21, 2016. REUTERS/Andrew Cullen
The North Dakota Supreme Court said on Thursday that contractual language commonly used in the state to calculate royalties that landowners pocket requires oil producers to pay values determined at the well, rather than higher ones as the oil gets closer to markets.
The opinion by a divided panel is in response to a certified question by a North Dakota federal court to clarify a gray area in state law, which should in turn enable rulings on more than half a dozen related putative class-action lawsuits by property owners who allege oil companies have underpaid them royalties. The Supreme Court said that its determination that royalties are calculated at the well, rather than downstream, may result in the dismissal of the