News - Monthly Archives: September 2016
The Ownership in Place Rule
Commercial development of oil in the United States began in 1859 with the first producing well drilled by Colonel E.L. Drake in Titusville, Pennsylvania. At the time, there was a well-developed body of law that, both from state legislatures and case law, governed property rights to minerals and coal found on a property. These rules were fairly simple to develop because ownership of coal and similar hard-rock mineral deposits formed strata beneath the surface of …