The most recent MOU contains language that intends to bind future assignees of oil & gas well working interests to the performance duties agreed to by the original well developers who negotiated the MOU with the county. Since those future transferees do not exist at the time an MOU is made with the county, they could not provide the necessary consent or contemporaneous consideration to bind themselves to the terms of an historical MOU, or prior agreement with the county.
When one of the original developer parties moves on, it would seem their performance duties under the MOU move on with them.
In order to attach a set of conditions to a property interest, a grantee/grantor structure would serve the purpose better since granted rights and duties can be attached and recorded to the land as encumbrances that will survive multiple ownerships.
This would necessitate bringing the landowner into the MOU contract as the grantor of specific mineral development rights and conditions. Moreover, given that the subject mineral interests belong to the landowner, this would appear to put the granted right where it belongs, directly under the consent of the principal mineral interest.
The county will probably object to this mechanism because county planning generally operates under a god complex where the county dictates all permitted land usage, and the county generally doesn’t prefer a subordinate role. And developers will probably object to this mechanism because they want a one-size-fits-all regulatory structure that doesn’t require messing around with a bunch of independent property owners.
Still, what’s convenient for the county and for developers is not necessarily good law. Arguably, the landowners have proprietary interests to protect, and they will do a much better job of it than the county or any transient third-party operator.
This raises the question of what power the county has to determine the allowable terms of an MOU grant that it is not party to. The county may only be able to provide advice on the matter.