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Subsurface ownership and hydraulic fracturing: not under my backyard

Subsurface ownership and hydraulic fracturing: not under my backyard. Jill Morgan Swansea University. Overview of paper. The extent of a surface landowner’s rights under his/her land Recent developments in the UK aimed at facilitating fracking proposals regarding underground drilling access

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Subsurface ownership and hydraulic fracturing: not under my backyard

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  1. Subsurface ownership and hydraulic fracturing: not under my backyard Jill Morgan Swansea University

  2. Overview of paper • The extent of a surface landowner’s rights under his/her land • Recent developments in the UK aimed at facilitating fracking • proposals regarding underground drilling access • changes to the law regarding notification of applications for planning permission

  3. Rights under land • Cuiusestsolum…(‘he who owns the soil owns also up to the heavens and down to the centre of the earth’ • Bocardo SA v Star Energy Onshore Ltd (2010) a landowner’s rights extend to the depth at which pressure and temperature make the concept of ownership so absurd as to be not worth arguing about.

  4. The Petroleum Act 1998 vests all rights in petroleum (including mineral oil and natural gas) in the Crown. • The Secretary of State can grant licences to third parties to ‘search and bore for and get petroleum’. • A licence does not entitle the licence holder to enter another person’s land.

  5. Therefore… …A shale gas operator which fails to obtain consent from all landowners though whose land it proposes to drill (or a court order granting rights of access) commits a trespass.

  6. Recent developments in the UK • Consultation Paper issued by DECC: • right of underground access, • payment in return for right of access, and • a community notification system

  7. Right of underground access Companies extracting petroleum (defined to include gas or oil) will be granted underground access rights to land at least 300 metres below the surface. (This will allow shale gas operators to drill below land to access energy resources without first negotiating rights of access with landowners.)

  8. Changes to the law regarding planning permission An applicant who applies for planning permission to win and work oil or natural gas by underground operations (including exploratory drilling) is no longer required to notify each owner and tenant individually. (Requirements of newspaper and site notices are retained.)

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