A female Landman (Landwoman?) has approached me, wanting to lease some of my pasture land for a "carbon capture project". I own half of the minerals under about two-thirds of the property, and none under the remainder.

She said the mineral ownership doesn't matter to them; they only need to lease the surface. She said they will be doing the injection in a nearby salt dome. I don't have any other details yet, as to duration, price, etc.

Do any of y'all have any experience with projects like this? Observations?

negotiate the best deal for you as soon as possible - with carbon capture being subsidized by government as "GREEN" ... this will end up being forced upon you.

Pm sent

You need an attorney who knows something about this, and you need them right now.

There are a few major sequestration projects on the horizon. All that can be said.

She is correct that they only need an agreement with the surface owner. Mineral owners do not own the subsurface pore space where the CO2 will be injected. They own only the extractable minerals that sit in the pore space (oil, gas, etc.). Also, you might want to make sure they aren't going to do something crazy like inject H2S down there. I don't represent landowners, but you should find a decent lawyer who does.

EPA is dragging their feet on approving any of these sequestration wells. So far, I think there are like two permitted nationwide.

I know of the numbers that have been offered and signed to lease in the SETX area and it's crazy. If they ever do the injection there will be hundreds of millions of dollars paid out

I would be very surprised if the mineral ownership really doesn't matter to them. Mineral estate takes priority over the surface. The lenders and investors for the project will likely require an agreement with the mineral owners.

The contracts I've seen and the multiple large landowners I've spoken with all have said that no mineral owner cooperation is needed. As someone else said above, the pore space is not apart of the mineral estate. I do see lawsuits in the future from mineral owners if/when injections sites start going in. I have a pretty thorough presentation put together by an attorney on all of this. I'll put it into a Google drive folder later today and share the link

I'm assuming we know where the desired formations are? How would one know?

My comment is about use of the surface potentially impacting the mineral owner's access to drill. If the carbon capture or other technology requires a large surface footprint, mineral owners will need to be involved. This is common on solar projects and a simple solution is setting aside one or more 5-10 acre drill sites for the mineral owner.

Do you have any info on how lenders/investors view this?

I scouted a carbon capture/sequestration site earlier last week for injected CO2 plume imaging.

The pad was no larger than a typical deep vertical well. Significantly smaller than multi well long reach lateral pads.

Didn't realize until this thread that there no mineral estate involvement, but I guess that's similar to water disposal

rme said:

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I would be very surprised if the mineral ownership really doesn't matter to them. Mineral estate takes priority over the surface. The lenders and investors for the project will likely require an agreement with the mineral owners.

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i see this repeated a lot and its simply not true. surface owners own the surface and as such are allowed to use their property as they see fit.

is it prudent to set aside a potential drill site for mineral owners? yes, if you have the available land. but, it's not required.

This is simply not true. It's ok for typical uses like farming and ranching. Try borrowing a few hundred million $ to cover the surface with solar panels without an agreement with mineral owners.

surface owners do in fact own the surface. mineral owners cannot stop the development of the land and use of the surface. they can make things difficult. like i said, it's prudent to work with the mineral owners. but, these generalized statements about how the mineral owners can come and do whatever they want is not true.

Furlock Bones said:

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surface owners do in fact own the surface. mineral owners cannot stop the development of the land and use of the surface. they can make things difficult. like i said, it's prudent to work with the mineral owners. but, these generalized statements about how the mineral owners can come and do whatever they want is not true.

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I must have missed the non-existent comment that says mineral owners can do whatever they want.

What about the mineral owners still having the surface rights of ingress/egress for mineral exploration?

That's part of mineral rights. You can't surface "landlock" a mineral owner from developing the mineral estate.

plowboy1065 said:

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The contracts I've seen and the multiple large landowners I've spoken with all have said that no mineral owner cooperation is needed. As someone else said above, the pore space is not apart of the mineral estate. I do see lawsuits in the future from mineral owners if/when injections sites start going in. I have a pretty thorough presentation put together by an attorney on all of this. I'll put it into a Google drive folder later today and share the link

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Have you had a chance to get that on Google drive. I am kind of interested in checking it out

Sorry been out of the office and on the road the past few days. I had to go in and remove the firm's info that put these slides together as I have no relationship with them.

Carbon Capture Projects

Furlock Bones said:

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rme said:

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I would be very surprised if the mineral ownership really doesn't matter to them. Mineral estate takes priority over the surface. The lenders and investors for the project will likely require an agreement with the mineral owners.

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i see this repeated a lot and its simply not true. surface owners own the surface and as such are allowed to use their property as they see fit.

is it prudent to set aside a potential drill site for mineral owners? yes, if you have the available land. but, it's not required.

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Both of you are wrong. There is a ton of legal nuance to the relationship between the surface owner and mineral owner. No, the mineral owner does not need to be involved in permitting a carbon storage project because that does not involve any use of the mineral estate, but no, surface owners cannot simply use their land "as they see fit" if it is to the exclusion of a mineral owner who is trying to extract minerals. The mineral estate is dominant over the surface estate in Texas, period.

Thanks!

plowboy1065 said:

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Sorry been out of the office and on the road the past few days. I had to go in and remove the firm's info that put these slides together as I have no relationship with them.

Carbon Capture Projects

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Thanks and no worries. I have been looking to do a CLE on this topic just to get a better understanding (by no means do I intend to advise clients regarding these things).

Fear InoculAg said:

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Furlock Bones said:

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rme said:

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I would be very surprised if the mineral ownership really doesn't matter to them. Mineral estate takes priority over the surface. The lenders and investors for the project will likely require an agreement with the mineral owners.

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i see this repeated a lot and its simply not true. surface owners own the surface and as such are allowed to use their property as they see fit.

is it prudent to set aside a potential drill site for mineral owners? yes, if you have the available land. but, it's not required.

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Both of you are wrong. There is a ton of legal nuance to the relationship between the surface owner and mineral owner. No, the mineral owner does not need to be involved in permitting a carbon storage project because that does not involve any use of the mineral estate, but no, surface owners cannot simply use their land "as they see fit" if it is to the exclusion of a mineral owner who is trying to extract minerals. The mineral estate is dominant over the surface estate in Texas, period.

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the correct answer for 90% of texags slap fights.

Furlock Bones said:

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surface owners do in fact own the surface. mineral owners cannot stop the development of the land and use of the surface. they can make things difficult. like i said, it's prudent to work with the mineral owners. but, these generalized statements about how the mineral owners can come and do whatever they want is not true.

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Surface owners can't block access to the minerals if the mineral owner done basically anything to develop said minerals

They want to capture carbon in the air and convert it to fuel.
XOM and others are all over this. The only issue is the outrage marketers and the true lefties don't like it they say it encourages more pollution.

I would definitely take the offer after having your lawyer look it over