Barrow Shaver Resources Company, LLC sold substantially all of its East Texas oil and gas assets to TexOil Investments, LLC for $60,000,010 and is winding down through a liquidating chapter 11 plan — an outcome that began not with a voluntary filing but with a creditor-forced one. Six oilfield service vendors put the Tyler, Texas exploration and production company into an involuntary chapter 7 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas on July 23, 2024, under lead case number 24-33353, and the debtor consented to relief and converted the case to chapter 11 weeks later.
What made the case unusually contentious for a single-debtor Texas upstream filing was not its size but its structure. Barrow Shaver ran the entire chapter 11 without DIP financing, which turned ordinary liquidity questions into a litigated adequate-protection fight in which mineral-lien claimants asserted statutory liens of not less than $13.4 million against production proceeds. Layered over that were a disputed "Mineral Interest Title Issue" in the Hidden Rock Field, five adversary proceedings, and roughly $67 million of trade debt described at the first day. By February 2026 the estate had abandoned any going-concern path and filed a built around a liquidation trust, which remained unconfirmed as of mid-2026.
U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston Division)
Case Number
24-33353
Petition Date
July 23, 2024 (involuntary chapter 7)
Conversion to Chapter 11
August 19, 2024
Judge
Hon. Alfredo R. Perez
Asset Sale
TexOil Investments, LLC — $60,000,010 (approved November 19, 2025)
Plan
Liquidating chapter 11 plan filed February 19, 2026 (unconfirmed)
Claims Agent
Kroll Restructuring Administration LLC
Case Snapshot
From Involuntary Petition to Consensual Chapter 11
Thomas D. Barrow and Scott O. Shaver formed the partnership behind Barrow Shaver Resources in 1989, building an upstream business around prospect generation, lease acquisition, and well development across the East Texas and Midland Basins. By the petition period the First Day Declaration of Chief Restructuring Officer James A. Katchadurian described a company controlling roughly 30,000 acres, holding a contiguous East Texas block of about 150 leaseholds totaling approximately 37,616 gross acres, and producing about 2,200 barrels per day from its East Texas operations. It was a lean operator: seven full-time administrative and management employees, seven contract office workers, and fourteen field contractors.
On July 23, 2024, six oilfield service companies — Axis Energy Services, LLC; DOC Energy Services, Inc.; Cudd Pressure Control, Inc.; Thru Tubing Solutions, Inc.; Genesis Fluids, LLC; and Force Pressure Control, LLC — filed an involuntary chapter 7 petition against Barrow Shaver, asserting aggregate trade claims of $8,454,981.01. Rather than litigate the involuntary case to a chapter 7 order for relief, the debtor consented and, on August 19, 2024, the court entered an order converting the case to chapter 11. First-day papers framed the conversion as a bid for operational survival, arguing that court supervision and continued operations were necessary to stabilize vendor relationships rather than liquidate.
Katchadurian of CR3 Partners assumed operational control as CRO on the date of conversion. The case was assigned to Judge Alfredo R. Perez and accorded complex chapter 11 treatment; Perez sits with Judge Christopher Lopez on the Houston division's complex-case panel. The U.S. Trustee appointed an official committee of unsecured creditors on August 30, 2024, and the committee retained Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP as counsel. In late September 2024 the debtor obtained authority to pay certain critical vendors, arguing that specific oilfield and operational vendors could not be replaced without material operational disruption.
$67 Million in Trade Debt and the Plains Marketing Interpleader
The first-day record tied the filing to a combination of unpaid vendor debt, lien pressure, interpleaded production proceeds, and contested ownership rights. As of the petition date, the First Day Declaration said the debtor owed about $67 million of trade debt and had received roughly $40 million in lien perfection notices — figures far larger than the $8.45 million the petitioning creditors themselves asserted. The trade debt spanned drilling, completion, and production services.
The most immediate liquidity pressure came from withheld production revenue. Plains Marketing, L.P., which purchased and marketed Barrow Shaver's oil, received mineral-lien notices from Force Pressure Control and Axis Energy Services and responded by withholding $2,506,506.81 and interpleading the disputed funds. Under Texas law, oilfield vendors can assert mineral liens against production proceeds, leaving Plains uncertain whether to pay the debtor or hold the money pending lien resolution — and leaving the estate without access to those funds at the moment it most needed cash. The filing also coincided with a soft commodity backdrop, as West Texas Intermediate crude declined from roughly $85 to about $70 per barrel over the course of 2024.
Running beneath the vendor and lien pressure was a "Mineral Interest Title Issue." The First Day Declaration disclosed that certain working interests and overriding royalty interests conveyed in connection with the Hidden Rock Operations were potentially not properly documented or recorded, and that some insiders may have received overriding royalty interests or failed to pay their share of joint interest billings. That title problem, raised by the debtor itself, became one of the defining disputes of the case and shaped both early motion practice and the eventual sale design.
Hidden Rock Title Dispute and Mineral-Interest Litigation
On the day of conversion, the debtor filed a Mineral Interests Motion seeking authority to keep paying royalties, overriding royalty interests, and working interests tied to production in the ordinary course. The petitioning creditors objected. In a supplemental objection filed September 12, 2024, they said they did not oppose ordinary-course payment of valid royalty interests or undisputed ORRIs and working interests, but they did oppose payment of "Purported Interests" that allegedly failed the statute of frauds, were unrecorded, or otherwise fell within the debtor's admitted title issue. They framed the dispute as a priority fight, arguing that invalid or unsecured claims should not be paid ahead of secured creditor rights.
That fight did not resolve early. The sale papers filed more than a year later still preserved mineral-lien rights, cure objections, and working-interest disputes, showing that the title and ownership questions stayed embedded in the monetization process rather than being cleaned up at the front of the case. The contested ownership of Hidden Rock interests ultimately drove a separate adversary track and the working-interest settlements that were required to close the TexOil sale.
The dispute produced a cluster of adversary proceedings within the bankruptcy. The most significant for case economics were the Plains interpleader over the withheld $2.5 million; a partnership-claims adversary captioned 0078HT, et al. v. Barrow Shaver Resources Company, LLC (Adv. No. 25-03618); and a lien-validity adversary filed in October 2025. Individual mineral owners also brought declaratory-judgment claims over their interests, and the debtor pursued its own prepetition claims against drilling contractor SDS Petroleum Consultants that the court later resolved through an approved settlement.
No DIP and the Cash-Collateral Fight
Because the case carried no DIP facility, the debtor funded the chapter 11 from production cash, and that choice produced a sustained adequate-protection battle in place of a negotiated financing order. On February 7, 2025, seven lien claimants — Axis Energy Services, DOC Energy Services, Cudd Pressure Control, Thru Tubing Solutions, Genesis Fluids, Force Pressure Control, and Reliance Well Service — filed a motion for adequate protection asserting statutory mineral liens under Chapter 56 of the Texas Property Code totaling not less than $13,412,758.28, with Reliance alone asserting $4,900,548.03. The movants argued the debtor was spending their cash collateral on operations, litigation, and payments to junior or disputed interest holders, and that every day of continued production depleted minerals and eroded their collateral. They sought periodic cash payments, replacement liens, the indubitable equivalent of their interest, or a halt to further use of the proceeds.
The debtor opposed on February 28, 2025, characterizing the motion as a leverage play by creditors who had earlier sought a chapter 7 liquidation. It argued the movants had not shown their liens were valid, perfected, or "in the money" — their proofs of claim left collateral value blank — and that under Texas law they held no valid lien on production proceeds at all, so the cash-collateral framework did not apply. The debtor said CRO oversight and well workovers had preserved or improved value, that the ongoing sale process was itself adequate protection, and asked the court to hold the Axis and Force requests in abeyance because those two creditors allegedly owed the estate more than $1 million for willful automatic-stay violations.
The same question ran in parallel through ProFrac, Cactus Wellhead, and Princess Three Operating motions and joinders, which the debtor and the creditors' committee both opposed on diminution-of-value and unperfected-lien grounds. In the absence of a DIP, these lien-validity and cash-collateral disputes had to be litigated rather than papered over in a financing order — a significant driver of the case's professional-fee burden and contested early record.
Three-Lot Sale and the $60 Million TexOil Transaction
By June 2025 the debtor had pivoted to a structured sale process. The bidding procedures motion split the assets into three lots: Lot 1 covered the Hidden Rock working interest, stipulated assets, and related pipeline assets; Lot 2 covered causes of action and disputed rights tied to remaining oil and gas interests, insider ORRI assignments, certain other ORRIs, and unpaid JIB-related claims; and Lot 3 covered the debtor's other legacy lease interests outside the Hidden Rock package. The lot structure was deliberate — the debtor wanted optionality given the complexity of the underlying disputes — and the procedures barred breakup fees, termination fees, and expense reimbursements, forcing bidders to compete without bid protections. New Orleans investment bank Chaffe & Associates ran the marketing process.
That process produced a TexOil Investments, LLC transaction. The November 2025 sale motion and sale order state that TexOil agreed to buy all three lots for a combined $60,000,010 purchase price — allocated $27,520,000 to Lot 1, $32,480,000 to Lot 2, and $10 to Lot 3 — plus the assumption of material plugging and abandonment liabilities. The official committee supported the sale, and the court entered the sale order on November 19, 2025, approximately 16 months after the involuntary petition. The sale papers made clear that outstanding assigned-contract, cure, adequate-protection, and mineral-lien issues were not all extinguished at closing; the motion expressly told alleged mineral-lien claimants they did not need to object merely to preserve their rights.
Closing the TexOil sale required clearing the Hidden Rock title disputes, which the debtor accomplished through Rule 9019 settlements rather than litigation. In an April 29, 2026 emergency motion, the debtor sought approval of settlements among the debtor, TexOil Investments, LLC, TexOil ET, LLC, and five "Settling Purported Working Interest Owners" — RB Oil, LLC; Wayne and Kathleen Cunningham; Mike Murphy; BMW Investments, LP; and 0078HT LLC — to resolve Lot 2 clear-title disputes and allow the sale to close on or about May 1, 2026. The economic centerpiece was a $16,240,000 "Guaranteed Minimum Payment" that TexOil agreed to fund to the estate at closing, comprising $12,992,000 of additional cash consideration and a $3,248,000 allocatable Lot 2 deposit. The settlements also fixed allowed general unsecured claims of $860,000 for BMW Investments and $165,000 for 0078HT, and set up new joint operating agreements after the debtor rejected prior exploration and operating agreements.
Post-Sale Settlements and Administrative-Claim Priority
A second major dispute settled in June 2026. The debtor held a prepetition claim against SDS Petroleum Consultants LLC over December 2023 drilling operations at the Hays Glover 1H well, alleging negligence and breach of contract and seeking $4,459,279.00 for fishing operations and nonproductive time, while SDS asserted more than $1.6 million in mechanics' liens and S One Royalty Properties pressed a working-interest title adversary. Following a June 4, 2026 mediation before the Honorable Marvin Isgur, the parties agreed in a Rule 9019 settlement that SDS would pay the estate $754,000, the debtor would pay SDS $187,000 to release the asserted mechanics' liens — an 89% discount the debtor cited as a key benefit — and S One would transfer its asserted working interests to the debtor, with SDS and S One withdrawing their proofs of claim. The court approved the settlement on June 9, 2026 and authorized Kroll to update the claims register accordingly.
Even with the sale closed, the estate remained contested over administrative-expense priority. Middleton Oil Company sought allowance and payment of administrative-expense claims as an alleged Hidden Rock working-interest owner, having already received at least $3,569,373.40 under a prior court order. Cactus Wellhead, LLC and Princess Three Operating, LLC — holders of Texas Chapter 56 mineral liens — objected on May 22, 2026, arguing the Middleton claims were prepetition or rejection-damage in nature, were not "actual, necessary" estate-preservation costs, and could not be paid ahead of perfected secured liens before plan confirmation. The administrative-claim hearing was repeatedly continued, drawing a committee joinder to the objections, and on June 8, 2026 the court reset Middleton's application to July 15, 2026, leaving the priority dispute unresolved. A separate adversary track involving NETX Acquisitions, LLC and ETX Minerals, LLC continued to litigate expert-disclosure and special-counsel disputes tied to the Hidden Rock title record through spring 2026.
Liquidating Plan and Trust-Interest Structure
The chapter 11 plan filed February 19, 2026 is a liquidating plan despite being styled as a plan of reorganization. It provides for dissolution of the debtor and transfer of estate property into a liquidation trust that will monetize remaining assets, reconcile claims, prosecute or settle litigation, and distribute value to allowed claimants. Rather than a simple cash waterfall, the plan establishes a layered trust-interest structure: Class 1 allowed secured mineral-lien claims receive Series A trust interests, Class 2 other secured claims receive Series B, Class 3 mineral interest claims receive Series C, Class 5 general unsecured claims receive Series D, Class 6 litigation claims receive Series E, and Class 7 rejection-damage claims receive Series F, with a convenience-class election contemplated for certain unsecured claims.
Every class is impaired and entitled to vote, but the filed plan leaves recovery figures as bracketed placeholders, so it carries no class-by-class recovery projection; distributions turn on the value the liquidation trust ultimately realizes. To preserve that upside, the debtor moved on June 5, 2026 for a 90-day extension of the deadline to commence estate claims and chapter 5 avoidance actions, seeking to push the August 19, 2026 deadline to November 17, 2026 while the CRO's investigation continued. As of mid-2026 the plan had not been confirmed; interim fee applications filed in April 2026 still listed the confirmation hearing as "TBD," and the docket instead reflected continued litigation over administrative-claim priority and Hidden Rock title disputes.
Professional Retentions and Fees
The debtor retained Jones Walker LLP as lead counsel, with Santoyo Wehmeyer P.C. as co-counsel, CR3 Partners providing CRO James Katchadurian, Riveron RTS as financial advisor, Chaffe & Associates as investment banker, and Kroll Restructuring Administration LLC as claims and noticing agent. Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP served as counsel to the official committee of unsecured creditors appointed in August 2024.
The combination of operational issues, title litigation, sale-process work, and creditor fights over mineral interests made the case expensive. The monthly operating report for the period ending October 31, 2025 reported $14,510,774 of cumulative professional fees and expenses, with about $6.82 million listed as cumulative approved fees for debtor and committee professionals. The same report itemized cumulative paid amounts including CR3 Partners ($5,169,469), Jones Walker ($4,524,235), Faegre Drinker ($1,938,093), Riveron Consulting ($1,473,335), Kroll ($453,546), Chaffe & Associates ($263,531), Santoyo Wehmeyer ($183,250), and Husch Blackwell ($54,938). With the plan still unconfirmed, the liquidating plan defers unpaid pre-effective-date professional fees to a post-effective-date application process and permits the liquidation trustee to retain and pay professionals from trust assets thereafter.
Plains Marketing files interpleader over withheld production revenue (Adv. 24-03167)
August 19, 2024
Debtor consents to relief; case converted to chapter 11; CRO Katchadurian assumes control
August 30, 2024
U.S. Trustee appoints official committee of unsecured creditors
September 12, 2024
Petitioning creditors file supplemental objection sharpening the mineral-interest fight
September 27, 2024
Court enters critical-vendor payment order
February 7, 2025
M&M lien claimants move for adequate protection ($13.4M asserted liens)
February 28, 2025
Debtor objects, disputing lien validity and any diminution
June 9, 2025
Debtor files three-lot bidding procedures and sale motion
November 19, 2025
Court approves TexOil sale for $60,000,010 plus assumed plugging and abandonment liabilities
December 23, 2025
Debtor files Lot 2 settlement procedures motion
February 19, 2026
Debtor files liquidating chapter 11 plan
April 29, 2026
Debtor moves to approve TexOil/working-interest settlements ($16.24M guaranteed minimum payment)
May 22, 2026
Cactus Wellhead and Princess Three object to Middleton Oil's administrative-expense claim
June 5, 2026
Debtor moves to extend avoidance/estate-claim deadline to November 17, 2026
June 8, 2026
Court continues Middleton administrative-claim hearing to July 15, 2026
June 9, 2026
Court approves SDS Petroleum / S One adversary settlement
Frequently Asked Questions
Why was Barrow Shaver forced into bankruptcy?
Six oilfield service companies — Axis Energy Services, DOC Energy Services, Cudd Pressure Control, Thru Tubing Solutions, Genesis Fluids, and Force Pressure Control — filed an involuntary chapter 7 petition on July 23, 2024, asserting aggregate trade claims of $8,454,981.01. The debtor consented to relief and converted the case to chapter 11 on August 19, 2024 rather than litigate the involuntary case.
How large was Barrow Shaver's debt at filing?
The First Day Declaration described about $67 million of trade debt and roughly $40 million in mineral-lien perfection notices as of the petition date — far larger than the $8.45 million the petitioning creditors themselves asserted.
Why did the case run without DIP financing?
The debtor funded the chapter 11 from production cash instead of a DIP facility, which turned liquidity into a contested adequate-protection question. Seven mineral-lien claimants asserted Texas Chapter 56 liens of not less than $13.4 million on production proceeds and demanded protection, while the debtor disputed that the liens were valid or perfected.
Who bought the company's assets and for how much?
TexOil Investments, LLC acquired all three asset lots for a combined $60,000,010 — $27,520,000 for Lot 1, $32,480,000 for Lot 2, and $10 for Lot 3 — plus assumed plugging and abandonment liabilities. The court approved the sale on November 19, 2025.
What were the Hidden Rock title disputes?
The debtor disclosed a "Mineral Interest Title Issue" involving working interests and overriding royalty interests in the Hidden Rock Field that were allegedly not properly documented or recorded. Resolving those disputes required Rule 9019 settlements with five working-interest owners and a $16,240,000 guaranteed minimum payment funded by TexOil to close the sale.
Is the case a reorganization or a liquidation?
The February 19, 2026 plan is a liquidating plan styled as a plan of reorganization. It dissolves the debtor and transfers estate property to a liquidation trust that issues Series A through F trust interests across impaired classes, with recovery figures left as placeholders pending the value the trust realizes.
Who is the claims agent for Barrow Shaver Resources?
Kroll Restructuring Administration LLC serves as the claims and noticing agent. The June 9, 2026 order approving the SDS Petroleum and S One settlement directed Kroll to update the official claims register to reflect the withdrawn proofs of claim.
declined from roughly $85 to about $70 per barrel https://www.thestreet.com/breaking-news/another-distressed-oil-company-files-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy
Chapter 56 of the Texas Property Code https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PR/htm/PR.56.htm
transfer of estate property into a liquidation trust https://today.westlaw.com/Document/I2d889c00107d11f18562d05caa316616/View/FullText.html?transitionType=CategoryPageItem&contextData=(sc.Default)
This article was researched and written with AI assistance, using court filings, public records, and news sources. AI-generated content can contain errors. Verify all information against primary sources before relying on it. This is not legal or financial advice. See the disclaimer.