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by gorkish 742 days ago
> you're never forced to sell your mineral rights and let people on your land

You are correct; if you own the surface and mineral rights you are not obligated to allow for any surface use. The thing you describe where someone drills on neighboring property and you are tagged along is called Force Pooling and is a much more complex topic.

You are not guaranteed to be force pooled -- if your neighbor has enough land to lease a full unit, it's conceivable that resources may still flow from your minerals towards the productive well without being compensated. It's usually in the landowners best interest to negotiate in good faith with a lessee than to be force pooled.

If you own only the surface rights to your land and someone else owns the subsurface minerals or a lease to the subsurface minerals you can absolutely be obligated to allow surface access for development and production under reasonable and usual terms for such.