landowner

Servitude and Prescription Questions

I've tried reading the mineral code, and haven't been able to find answers to these questions.  So if anyone has answers, I'd appreciate some help.

Consider a person with 3 years remaining on a mineral servitude, who signs an oil and gas lease that explicitly restricts the driller to  operating at shallow depths, say 5000' or less.  Assume the driller drills a successful well that produces for many years.  After that 3 years, will the mineral rights to the depths below 5000' prescribe? 

And here's the dumb question of the day....  will the mineral rights to the solid minerals (e.g., sulfur, coal, lignite, etc.) prescribe?  I'm guessing they will, but I cannot find it explicitly in the mineral code, that drilling for oil and gas won't interrupt prescription of solid minerals. 

Thanks, in advance, for any insights.

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Oil & Gas ProPermalink Reply by The_Baron on December 6, 2011 at 4:11

1) Prescription will be interupted as it is one servitude, as long as the requirments for interruption are met and as long as the mineral owner owns all depths of the servitude. The lease is only restricting what the operator may explore for. So If you owned 40 acres of minerals without the surface, and leased everything down to say 5000', but own the whole 40 acres of minerals, an d then a well is drilled and meets the requirments for prescription, your whole servitude would have prescrition interupted.

 

2) It is my understanding that solid minerals can not be seperated from the ownership of the land

 

§5.  Ownership of solid minerals

Ownership of land includes all minerals occurring naturally in a solid state.  Solid minerals are insusceptible of ownership apart from the land until reduced to possession.  

Acts 1974, No. 50, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1975.  

 

 

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