The Texas Supreme Court last week decided Key Operating & Equipment, Inc. v. Hegar, No. 13-0156, reversing the courts below and holding that Key Operating has the right to use a road crossing Hegar’s tract to produce from a well on adjacent lands.
The legal principle the Court applied is not surprising and did not substantially change existing precedent. But the unusual facts of the case illustrate how far the Court will go to protect the rights of mineral lessees when those rights conflict with interests of the surface owner.
The legal precedent the Court followed is this: when two tracts are combined to create a pooled unit, the operator of the unit has the right to use the surface of all of the land covered by the leases included in the unit to operate wells located anywhere on the unit, regardless of the location of the well.