## Facts

- Lightning Oil Company held an oil-and-gas lease covering the mineral estate beneath the Briscoe Ranch in Dimmit County, Texas.
- Anadarko E&P Onshore, LLC held a lease from the State to develop minerals under the adjacent Chaparral Wildlife Management Area; the lease restricted surface operations and favored off-site drilling when feasible.
- Anadarko obtained an agreement from Briscoe Ranch, Inc., the surface owner of Briscoe Ranch, allowing Anadarko to locate well pads on the ranch.
- Anadarko planned to drill wells that would pass vertically through the Briscoe Ranch surface and subsurface and then turn horizontally into the Chaparral tract to produce State-leased minerals.
- Lightning was not a party to Anadarko’s agreement with the surface owner and did not consent to the planned well paths.
- Lightning sued Anadarko alleging (1) subsurface trespass by drilling through Lightning’s leased mineral estate and (2) tortious interference with Lightning’s leasehold rights, claiming interference with development and loss from minerals removed in the wellbore path and occupation of subsurface space.
- The trial court granted Anadarko summary judgment and denied Lightning’s summary-judgment motions.
- The court of appeals affirmed, concluding the surface owner controlled the subsurface earth and could authorize Anadarko’s wellbores.
- The Supreme Court of Texas granted review and affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether an operator commits actionable subsurface trespass by drilling a wellbore through a tract where another party holds the mineral lease, when the operator has the surface owner’s consent but not the mineral lessee’s consent.
2. Whether drilling through the tract under those circumstances constitutes tortious interference with the mineral lessee’s oil-and-gas lease.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas affirmed summary judgment for Anadarko.
- The Court held Anadarko did not commit actionable subsurface trespass because the minimal mineral loss from the wellbore path was not a sufficient injury to support trespass on these facts.
- The Court held the surface owner could authorize Anadarko to use the subsurface earth (the rock/matrix) for the wellbore absent an express grant giving the mineral lessee control of that subsurface space.
- The Court rejected Lightning’s tortious-interference claim because Lightning failed to show Anadarko’s conduct proximately caused a cognizable loss of Lightning’s contractual rights (such as inducing a breach or preventing performance).

## Legal Principles

- In a severed-estate setting, the mineral interest is an interest in the minerals in place and the right to explore, develop, and produce them; it does not automatically include exclusive control of the subsurface earth through which a wellbore passes.
- Absent an express grant or contractual limitation, the surface estate owner generally controls the subsurface matrix and may permit third parties to drill through it to access adjacent minerals, so long as the activity does not unlawfully appropriate the tract’s minerals or materially impair the mineral lessee’s opportunity to recover them.
- The mineral estate’s “dominance” is limited to uses reasonably necessary for mineral development; it does not create a general right to exclude other subsurface uses that do not materially interfere with mineral development.
- An actionable trespass claim requires a legally sufficient injury; de minimis mineral removal incidental to drilling through the tract, without more, is insufficient on these facts.
- Tortious interference requires proof of causation of a recognized contractual injury; speculative or minor inconvenience or cost impacts, without a showing of induced breach or comparable contractual impairment, do not establish liability.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court of Texas held that a surface owner may authorize an operator to drill a directional wellbore through the tract’s subsurface to reach minerals under an adjacent tract without the mineral lessee’s consent, where the well does not take the tract’s minerals in a legally significant way or materially impair the lessee’s ability to develop, and the lessee also fails to prove tortious-interference elements.


Lightning Oil Co. v. Anadarko E&P Onshore, LLC, 520 S.W.3d 39 (Tex. 2017)