Texas High Court Agrees to Rehear Exxon Case

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday said it will again hear arguments in the nearly 15-year legal battle over accusations that Exxon Mobil Corp. loaded abandoned wells with junk, sludge and even explosives to keep other companies from drilling there.

A small drilling company that tried to enter the wells near Corpus Christi, and the land owners, accused the world's largest publicly traded oil company of intentionally wrecking the wells.

The plaintiffs won at trial in 1999, but the Texas Supreme Court reversed the finding in March. That ruling from the state's highest civil court sparked a campaign to rehear the case led by the Texas land commissioner and state comptroller.

"At least I think that the Supreme Court recognized that they probably didn't rule the way they should've," said Glenn Lynch, former Emerald Oil & Gas president who says his company has lost millions fighting Exxon. "What I'd like to see them do is make it right. That's all we really ever asked them."

Irving-based Exxon Mobil says it plugged the wells properly to protect the groundwater supply.

"We look forward to restating our arguments to the court," spokesman David Eglinton said in an e-mailed statement.

Osler McCarthy, a spokesman for the Texas Supreme Court, said no date has been set for a hearing. A deadline next week would have made the March ruling for Exxon final.

The fight began in the late 1980s after the well-known O'Connor family of South Texas and Exxon failed to renegotiate royalty rates for decreasingly productive wells. After Exxon plugged the wells and left, Emerald tried to re-enter several in 1994. Smaller drilling companies routinely reopen plugged wells after signing new leases with the landowners.

But in Emerald's case, the company says, efforts to re-enter more than 30 wells were blocked by numerous obstructions. Among them were a tool known used to break up well casings that still was loaded with explosives, upside down drill bits and steel debris, according to lawyers and court records.