The Law of Oil and Gas

Because of the extraordinary characteristics of oil and gas, property rights which govern the ownership and extraction of these minerals from the ground are of exceptional interest to students of law.' Oil and gas in their natural state have been variously characterized by the courts as "migratory", "wandering", "fugitive", "fugacious", "fluent", "mobile", "volatile", "furtive", "self-propelling", "selftransmissive", "having a tendency to escape", and so on. They have been likened to animals ferae naturae, to water in its natural state, and to air. These resemblances are for the most part superficial and, in many instances, where courts have relied on the assumed analogy, erroneous conclusions have resulted. It is desirable at the outset to have a clear understanding of the physical characteristics of oil and gas as they exist in their natural state in the ground. We have seen that their genesis is still a matter of scientific conjecture, though there is wide acceptance of the theory that they are an evolutionary product of marine life deposited and concentrated and chemically altered through geologic time? We have