If the Term of Your Oil and Gas Lease Expires, Does it Terminate?
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By Paul R. Yagelski
Rothman Gordon
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
You have leased your oil and gas rights, but they have not been pooled, and nothing has happened on your property during the primary term¹ of your lease to develop the oil and gas. You have leased your oil and gas rights and the land containing the oil and gas has been pooled with other lands to create a unit, but nothing has happened to develop the oil and gas in the unit during the primary term. In either case, at the end of the primary term of your lease, does your lease terminate? Is it at an end? Not necessarily. Where your royalty is based on volume of production and your lease is for a period of years and "as much longer as oil and gas is produced," or similar language is contained in your lease, your lease may not automatically expire at the end of its primary term.