Guide · the owner's primer

Pore space and produced water

Two new things under your land that operators now want to lease, and who owns them.

Two kinds of rights under West Texas land have become valuable in the last few years, and Texas courts have recently said who owns them.

Pore space

The empty space in deep rock, once oil and gas are gone, can store carbon dioxide for a federal tax credit. Companies are permitting Class VI injection wells in the Permian and drawing "areas of review" — the footprint of the CO₂ plume — across private land. In 2025 the Texas Supreme Court held that pore space belongs to the surface owner, not the mineral owner. If you own the surface, a storage company needs your agreement to put a plume under you; if a plume has been drawn under you, you may not have been told.

Produced water

Oil wells bring up far more salty water than oil. That water, once a disposal cost, is now sold for reuse and for the lithium and other minerals in it. In 2025 the Texas Supreme Court held that, under an ordinary oil and gas lease, produced water belongs to the mineral lessee — the operator — unless the lease or the deed says otherwise. New leases can reserve it; old leases usually do not.

What to do

• If you own surface in Ector, Upton, Gaines, Reeves, or Loving counties, ask whether a Class VI area of review covers you. We keep the list.
• When a new lease or a surface-use agreement comes, reserve produced water and pore space explicitly, or price them.
• Do not sign a pore-space option that pays a few dollars an acre to hold your space for years.

We draft the rider and the addendum, and we negotiate them. Ask on the start page.