Barnard v. Monongahela Natural Gas Co.

Citations

• 216 Pa. 362
• 65 A. 801
• 1907 Pa. LEXIS 820

Syllabus

<p>Oil and gas lease — Adjoining lands — Exhaustion of gas.</p> <p>A landowner has a right to drill an oil or gas well on any part of his land without regard to the effect on the adjoining land.</p> <p>The only .remedy of the adjoining owner is to protect his oil by a well on his own land.</p> <p>A lessee has the same rights in this respect as his lessor. But where the same lessee holds under two adjoining lessors he may not fraudulently or evasively so drill his wells as to drain the property of one to the detriment of the other.</p> <p>Such lessee may, however, drill a well on one farm close to the line of the other and draw from the latter three-fourths of th,e gas therein, if.it appears that he also drilled a well on the latter and in good faith endeavored to develop the land in the performance of his duty.</p>