Media item displaying Edward Lentz

Snapshot

    • Title opinions and curative work
    • Acquisition and divestiture of oil and gas properties
    • Long lateral and horizontal well title complexity
    • Stratigraphic rights and depth severances
    • Residential and commercial loan documentation, compliance and corporate governance for lenders
    • Mineral ownership determinations for lenders and surface development
    • Oil & Gas Operators
    • Landmen and Land Departments
    • Banks, Mortgage Companies and Private Lenders
    • Board Certified in Oil, Gas & Mineral Law, Texas Board of Legal Specialization
    • Rare dual practice combining oil and gas title work with banking, mortgage and private lending representation
    • Former landman with both field and in-house perspective, and began preparing title opinions as a law clerk while still in law school
    • Confirms oil and gas mineral ownership for lenders financing large surface developments such as refinery construction
    • Texas (Permian Basin, Eagle Ford Shale, Barnett Shale, East Texas)
    • North Dakota (Bakken)
    • Ohio (Utica Shale)

Details

Edward Lentz

Managing Attorney

P 713.641.5563

[email protected]

Edward “Eddie” Lentz maintains two parallel practices that few oil and gas attorneys combine, representing upstream exploration and production companies in title examination and transactional matters, while separately representing banks and financial institutions in reserve-based lending (RBL) transactions. He began preparing title opinions as a law clerk while still in law school, later worked as a petroleum landman, and practiced at several Houston oil and gas firms and a Houston firm that represented residential mortgage lenders and banking institutions before joining Feighny Hartle.

Title opinions and curative work from a former landman’s perspective

Having worked as a landman himself, he understands the different needs of field and in-house landman, and he writes opinions in plain language rather than legal jargon.

Title complexity in new horizontal wells

The shift from vertical wells to horizontal wells and ever increasingly longer laterals extending several miles in length has substantially increased the complexity of the title opinions Eddie prepares. A single opinion can now span multiple contiguous tracts, include old (HBP) leases often backed with questionable past production histories and multiple depths and stratigraphic zones. That complexity increases the operational risk for a client, since a single overlooked mineral severance or a bad lease can impact the drilling schedule or the entire project. While he began his career chaining title on butcher paper and calculating ownership calculations with a paper tape calculator; he now relies on computer-aided title chains and Excel to calculate ownership and chain out title for lands that may have hundreds of owners, a shift that reflects how new drilling technologies have increased the complexity of title opinions.

A parallel banking practice representing lenders

Eddie’s banking work centers on helping banks and financial institutions prepare loan documentation for their smaller, often privately-held reserve-based lending (RBL) clients and also limited lending title opinions confirming well ownership which are incidental to the lending process. He has also prepared mineral title opinions for large complex surface developments where traditional title examination frameworks break down, with the primary purpose to identify and mitigate the title risk from dominant mineral estate conflicts through mineral/surface waivers and surface use agreements.  

“Landowners and operators are not adversaries. Leasing minerals and paying royalties is fundamentally a partnership, and that is how I approach every title opinion I write.”