Private Ownership in the Case of Oil and Gas Resources under the USA Law

The concept of private ownership of oil and gas resources might seems as a strange phenomenon among Iranian lawyers, butthe private ownership over hydrocarbon resources has been recognized in the United States of America since the oil was drilled. Research in the enacted laws and regulation of different states in this country and jurisprudence in this regard show that the private ownership is based on two principles: (i) delimitation of hydrocarbons resources between neighboring lands, which empowers each owner of adjoining land to extract as much hydrocarbons as he can and (ii) detailed stipulation of rights and duties of land owners and oil and gas companies engaged in extracting hydrocarbons resources, according to which these rights and duties are not limited to written provisions of the concluded contract and the jurisprudence has assumed and read extra commitments into such contracts to complement relations of both parties.