RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RULE OF CAPTURE

摘要

Early common law had a simple rule for determining the ownership of minerals, the ad coleum doctrine. This doctrine held that an individual landowner owned everything from the surface of his property to the heavens and everything to the core of the earth. Commonly referred to as the heaven to hell principle,1 this doctrine worked very well for coal and iron ore and controlled the law of mineral rights for hundreds of years. That all changed on August 27, 1859 when Edwin L. Drake, on behalf of the Seneca Oil Company, drilled the first commercial oil and natural gas well in the U.S. Oil had been collected in the Oil Creek Valley for centuries beginning with Native Americans by skimming the oil from streams. Additionally, the Oil Creek Valley was full of "oil pits". These pits were roughly eight feet wide, six feet long, and up to ten feet deep. Archeologists have found that the pits were probably dug by the Mound Builders prior to 1548.2 But with the advent of modern technologies, the question arises, does the old law have to give way to new rales? Owning to the heavens would allow every landowner to sue airlines for trespass. Owning to the earth's core would not account for the fugacious nature of oil and gas.