"Empty Space Is Not a Mineral": Surface Ownership of Subsurface Caverns and In‑Kind Mineral Royalties under Texas Law

"Empty Space Is Not a Mineral": Surface Ownership of Subsurface Caverns and In‑Kind Mineral Royalties under Texas Law

I. Introduction

In Myers-Woodward, LLC v. Underground Services Markham, LLC & United Brine Pipeline Company, LLC, No. 22‑0878 (Tex. May 16, 2025), the Supreme Court of Texas resolves two significant questions in Texas property and oil-and-gas law:

  1. Who owns and controls subsurface “salt caverns” – the surface estate or the mineral estate?
  2. How should a mid‑20th‑century “1/8 of all the gas or other minerals” royalty reservation be characterized and calculated?

The case sits at the intersection of:

  • Traditional Texas doctrines distinguishing the surface estate from the mineral estate,
  • The implied rights of mineral owners to use the surface and subsurface,
  • The rapidly growing economic importance of subsurface storage (for oil, gas, and likely carbon dioxide), and
  • Classic royalty-construction problems in old mineral deeds that never anticipated modern salt‑cavern storage economics.

The Court affirms the court of appeals’ holding on ownership and use of the caverns and reverses on the proper measure of the surface owner’s royalty, remanding for a new royalty calculation. In doing so, it announces a clear, bright-line rule on subsurface “pore-space” ownership and clarifies how to interpret a widely used form of royalty clause.

A. The Parties and Property Interests

  • Petitioner: Myers‑Woodward, LLC (“Myers”) – owner of the surface estate in 160 acres in Matagorda County, Texas, and holder of a reserved 1/8 royalty interest.
  • Respondents: Underground Services Markham, LLC and United Brine Pipeline Company, LLC (collectively, “USM”) – successors to the mineral estate, including rights to salt and salt formations under the tract.

In 1947, the then‑surface owners reserved the surface estate and conveyed the mineral estate—“all of the said oil, gas and other minerals”—while reserving a 1/8 royalty. A few months later, a correction deed clarified that the 1/8 royalty applied to oil, gas, and “other minerals.” In 2008, Texas Brine conveyed to USM “all of [its] right, title and interest, in and to all of the salt and salt formations only” in the property, expressly subject to the existing royalty obligations.

USM later solution‑mined a salt dome on the property, creating large caverns. Those caverns can be, and often are in industry practice, used to store hydrocarbons produced elsewhere. The parties disputed both:

  1. Who owns those resulting subsurface caverns and who may use them; and
  2. How to calculate Myers’s 1/8 royalty on the produced salt.

B. Key Legal Issues

  1. Subsurface ownership and use
    • Does a conveyance of “all oil, gas and other minerals,” and later of “salt and salt formations only,” give the mineral owner title to the empty space (pore space / caverns) created inside the salt formation?
    • Even if the surface owner owns the voids, does the mineral owner’s status as the “dominant estate” permit it to use the caverns to store third‑party hydrocarbons produced off the tract?
  2. Royalty characterization
    • Does a reservation of “a royalty of 1/8 of all the gas or other minerals in, on, or under, or that may be produced from” the land:
      • Reserve an in‑kind royalty (a share of the actual production or its sale proceeds), or
      • Merely entitle the royalty owner to 1/8 of the market value of the minerals produced, regardless of actual sale price?

II. Summary of the Opinion

A. Subsurface Caverns: Ownership and Use

The Court holds:

  1. Ownership of the Caverns: As a matter of Texas property law, and under the deeds in this case, the surface owner (Myers) owns the subsurface space—including the “empty underground spaces left behind” by salt mining. The mineral owner (USM) owns the salt itself, not the voids created once the salt is removed.
    • “Empty space is not a mineral, no matter how economically valuable it becomes.”
    • “Absent an agreement otherwise, ownership of underground salt does not include ownership of underground empty space within or around a salt formation.”
  2. Implied Rights of Use: Although the surface owner holds title to the space, the mineral owner:
    • Retains the implied right to use as much of the surface and subsurface as is reasonably necessary to produce the minerals from that tract, and
    • May use the caverns only to the extent such use is reasonably necessary to produce salt from the property.
  3. No Right to Off‑Lease Storage: USM cannot use the caverns to store hydrocarbons produced off the property. Such use is:
    • Not reasonably necessary to the production of salt, and
    • Constitutes an impermissible increase in the burden on the surface estate “for the benefit of additional lands.”
  4. Mapco Disapproved: To the extent the Beaumont court of appeals’ decision in Mapco, Inc. v. Carter treated the mineral owner as retaining ownership of salt‑cavern storage space, it is expressly rejected as inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s holding.

B. Royalty Calculation: In‑Kind vs. Market-Value Royalty

The Court further holds:

  1. The 1947 correction deed’s reservation of “a royalty of 1/8 of all the gas or other minerals in, on, or under, or that may be produced from” the land:
    • Reserves an in‑kind royalty on gas and other minerals (including salt), not merely a right to a market‑value payment.
    • Must be read together with the original deed’s oil‑royalty clause, which clearly contemplates in‑kind delivery at the well or into a pipeline.
  2. The parties intended a uniform 1/8 in‑kind royalty on oil, gas, and other minerals (aside from sulfur), not a mixed system where oil is in‑kind but gas and other minerals are market‑value only.
  3. The lower courts erred by calculating Myers’s salt royalty solely on the basis of the market value at the wellhead rather than 1/8 of the actual sale proceeds (net of post‑production costs) attributable to salt produced from the tract.
  4. The Court therefore:
    • Affirms the court of appeals as to cavern ownership and limitations on use, and
    • Reverses on royalty calculation, remanding for a new determination under the in‑kind royalty standard.

III. Precedents and Authorities Cited

A. Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. West (Tex. 1974)

In Humble v. West, the Court distinguished between:

  • The mineral estate, and
  • “The matrix of the underlying earth, i.e., the reservoir storage space,” suggesting that such space remains with the surface owner after severance of the mineral estate.

Although Humble owned both estates in that case (so the distinction did not decide the controversy), the dicta foreshadowed the notion that subsurface space is not itself part of the mineral estate.

B. Lightning Oil Co. v. Anadarko E&P Onshore, LLC (Tex. 2017)

Lightning Oil involved Anadarko drilling through Lightning’s mineral estate from a surface location on adjacent land to reach Anadarko’s own minerals. The Court held:

  • The mineral estate generally includes the right to “possess the minerals” but “does not include the right to possess the specific place or space where the minerals are located.”
  • The mineral owner may use as much of the surface and subsurface as is reasonably necessary to develop its minerals, but does not own the subsurface mass.

The Court in Myers‑Woodward explicitly builds on this framework, reaffirming that the mineral estate’s rights are use rights (an implied easement) rather than possessory ownership of subsurface space.

C. Regency Field Services, LLC v. Swift Energy Operating, LLC (Tex. 2021)

In Regency Field Services, the Court, citing Lightning Oil, stated that:

“The surface owner, and not the mineral lessee, owns the possessory rights to the space under the property's surface.”

That general principle is elevated in Myers‑Woodward into a clear governing rule for pore space and salt caverns: subsurface voids belong to the surface estate absent contrary agreement.

D. Coastal Oil & Gas Corp. v. Garza Energy Trust (Tex. 2008)

Coastal Oil addressed the rule of capture and the nature of mineral ownership in place. The Court observed that:

  • A mineral owner has a “real interest” in oil and gas in place, but not in the specific molecules beneath the property, due to the rule of capture.

USM argued that this reasoning should be confined to migratory minerals (oil and gas), claiming that owners of solid minerals (like salt) do own the specific molecules and, by extension, the formations that encase them. The Court in Myers‑Woodward acknowledges the difference, but declines to create separate ownership rules for solid versus fluid minerals. It instead stresses the deed language and general subsurface-ownership principles rather than the physics of mineral migration.

E. Coyote Lake Ranch, LLC v. City of Lubbock (Tex. 2016)

Coyote Lake extended the “dominant estate” and implied-use concepts (traditionally applied in oil-and-gas cases) to severed groundwater estates. It reiterated that the severed mineral (or groundwater) estate has an implied right to use the surface as is reasonably necessary to exercise its rights.

Myers‑Woodward relies on Coyote Lake to:

  • Confirm that the mineral estate is “dominant” only in the sense that it carries an implied right of reasonable use—not that it owns all subsurface space, and
  • Frame USM’s rights in the caverns as a limited implied easement tethered to actual salt production from the tract.

F. Robinson v. Robbins Petroleum Corp. (Tex. 1973)

Robinson held that:

  • The mineral owner’s implied right to use the surface does not extend to increasing the burden on the surface estate for the benefit of other lands or off‑lease operations.

The Court applies this principle directly: even though USM may use the caverns to the extent reasonably necessary to produce salt from Myers’s land, USM may not use them to store hydrocarbons produced elsewhere—a classic off‑lease use barred by Robinson.

G. Mapco, Inc. v. Carter (Tex. App.—Beaumont 1991), rev’d in part on other grounds, 817 S.W.2d 686 (Tex. 1991)

Mapco is the only Texas case that had previously treated a mineral owner as retaining an ownership interest in underground storage caverns created by salt mining. It had asserted that such an interest was “harmonious” with Texas law.

In Myers‑Woodward, the Supreme Court:

  • Notes that Mapco is “difficult to parse,” cites little Texas authority, and is widely viewed by commentators as a minority view.
  • States bluntly: “We do not find Mapco’s reasoning persuasive, and to the extent it is inconsistent with our holding today, it is overruled.”

This explicit disapproval is highly significant; it clears away the primary Texas authority that had pointed toward mineral‑estate ownership of storage caverns.

H. Federal and Treatise Authorities

The Court also invokes persuasive authorities applying Texas law:

  • Dunn-McCampbell Royalty Interest, Inc. v. National Park Service, 630 F.3d 431 (5th Cir. 2011) – Recognizing that Texas mineral owners “have the right to exploit minerals, but do not own the subsurface mass.”
  • Emeny v. United States, 412 F.2d 1319 (Ct. Cl. 1969) – Holding that landowners retained geological structures suitable for storage of extraneous gas.

And it cites leading treatises:

  • Smith & Weaver, Texas Law of Oil and Gas – Suggesting that rights to store foreign gas in pore space belong more naturally to the surface estate.
  • Williams & Meyers, Oil and Gas Law – Emphasizing that the mineral estate gives only limited exploitation rights and use of pore space, leaving the rock and space with the surface owner.
  • Kuntz, Law of Oil and Gas – Observing that the landowner normally retains the right to use land for subsurface storage of gas and other substances.

These authorities support the Court’s conclusion that, doctrinally and as a matter of policy, pore-space ownership resides in the surface estate, with only limited use rights in the mineral estate.

IV. Legal Reasoning

A. Step One: Start with the Deeds, Not Labels

The Court emphasizes a critical methodological point: courts must start with the text of the conveyances, not with abstract labels like “surface estate” or “mineral estate.”

The chain of title here:

  1. 1947 mineral deed: Conveys “all of the said oil, gas and other minerals in, on and under said land” and reserves a 1/8 royalty on oil.
  2. 1947 correction deed: Broadens that royalty reservation to include gas and “other minerals.”
  3. 2008 salt deed: Conveys to USM “all of [Texas Brine Company’s] right, title and interest, in and to all of the salt and salt formations only” subject to all royalty obligations.

Critically, under the 1947 transaction, the mineral grantee obtained only “oil, gas and other minerals”—not fee simple title to all subsurface geological formations. Thus, when USM later claims it owns the “salt formations,” the Court notes that:

  • A grantor cannot convey more than it owns; USM’s predecessor never received title to the entire formation, only to the minerals it contained.

Therefore, USM at most owns the salt, not the entire salt formation, and certainly not the “empty space” created when salt is removed.

B. “Empty Space Is Not Salt”: Pore-Space Ownership

The core of the Court’s reasoning is concise and conceptual:

“No matter who created the underground empty space or where it is located, the space itself is not salt, which means the mineral estate generally does not entail physical ownership of it (absent some indication to the contrary in the conveyance, which we do not see here).”

Building on Lightning Oil and Regency, the Court crystallizes the rule:

“We therefore hold, once again, that ‘the surface owner, and not the mineral lessee, owns the possessory rights to the space under the property's surface,’ absent an agreement otherwise.”

This rule:

  • Applies regardless of whether the surrounding rock is salt, sandstone, limestone, or some other formation.
  • Avoids the “complex and uncertain” consequences of having one rule for space within mineral formations and another for space within non‑mineral formations.
  • Preserves a bright-line, simple rule that can be consistently applied across cases: subsurface pore space belongs to the surface estate.

C. Mineral Estate Rights: Use, Not Possession, and Not Off‑Lease Storage

Having placed ownership of the caverns in the surface estate, the Court turns to what the mineral estate may still do with those caverns. It restates the classic doctrine:

  • The severed mineral estate has an implied easement to use the surface (and necessary subsurface) as is reasonably necessary to find, produce, and transport the minerals from that tract.
  • The mineral estate is “dominant” only in that limited sense.

Two key limits appear:

  1. Necessity to Mineral Production – USM must show that a particular use of the caverns is reasonably necessary to produce salt from this tract. The Court:
    • Finds no such connection between storing off‑site hydrocarbons and producing on‑tract salt.
    • Even suggests such storage is more likely to impede further salt production.
  2. No Additional Burden for Other Lands – Under Robinson, the mineral owner cannot use the servient surface estate for the benefit of other properties. Thus, USM cannot justify off‑tract storage as part of its implied rights.

Put simply: USM has an easement to use the surface and subsurface cavity as a means of producing salt from Myers’s tract, not as a separate business asset for storage of third‑party hydrocarbons.

D. Rejecting a Special Rule for Solid Minerals (Salt)

USM’s most sophisticated argument was that solid minerals (like salt or coal) differ fundamentally from fluid oil and gas:

  • They don’t migrate; thus, the owner can meaningfully own the specific molecules and the “solid mass” of the formation.
  • Cases from coal‑mining states sometimes treat coal owners as owning mine shafts and caverns created by removing coal.

The Court acknowledges some intuitive appeal and out‑of‑state support for this view, but refuses to create a distinct “solid-mineral rule” in Texas. It identifies two core problems:

  1. Chain of Title: USM does not own the entire formation; only the salt. Non‑salt components and voids were never conveyed in 1947.
  2. Systemic Complexity: Establishing different rules based on the surrounding rock’s classification (mineral vs non‑mineral) would:
    • Inject unnecessary complexity into property law, and
    • Create uncertainty with potentially far‑reaching, unknown consequences.

The Court thus opts for a unified rule: Subsurface space belongs to the surface estate unless expressly conveyed or reserved otherwise.

E. Royalty Construction: Text, Context, and Intent

The royalty dispute turns on how to read the 1947 correction deed’s language:

“[The grantors] shall be entitled to a royalty of 1/8 of all the gas or other minerals in, on, or under, or that may be produced from the above described land … it being intended that they shall receive a total royalty interest of 1/8 of all the oil, gas, or other minerals (except sulphur) produced from said land.”

USM argued:

  • An in‑kind royalty is signaled by explicit “delivery” language.
  • The correction deed contains no delivery language for gas and other minerals; therefore, it must create only a right to 1/8 of market value.

The Court accepts that delivery language is a common hallmark of in‑kind royalties—but refuses to treat its absence as dispositive here. Instead, it applies basic contract principles:

  • Ascertain intent from the language used, read in context of the entire transaction.
  • Acknowledge that parties are free to bargain as they choose, and courts must enforce the agreement they made.

1. The Original 1947 Deed: Undisputed In‑Kind Oil Royalty

The original deed clearly creates an in‑kind oil royalty:

“a perpetual one‑eighth (1/8th) royalty on all oil that may be produced and saved from [the land], the same to be delivered at the wells or to the credit of Grantors into pipe line to which the wells may be connected.”

Both parties agree this is an in‑kind royalty on oil.

2. The Correction Deed: Adding Gas and Other Minerals to the Same Arrangement

Three months later, the correction deed declares that the parties had “inadvertently” failed to reserve royalties in “gas or other minerals,” and amends the original deed “in addition to the royalties on oil” to provide:

  • A royalty of 1/8 of all gas and other minerals,
  • With the expressed intention that the grantors receive “a total royalty interest of 1/8 of all the oil, gas, or other minerals … produced from said land.”

The Court finds it highly implausible that:

  • The parties created an undisputed in‑kind oil royalty in May, and
  • Then, in August, silently created an entirely different market‑value‑only royalty for gas and other minerals, while using parallel language and stating an intent to create a unified “total royalty interest of 1/8” of all production.

In context, the better reading is:

  • The correction deed extends the existing in‑kind royalty concept to gas and other minerals rather than creating a different type of royalty, and
  • The reference to “total royalty interest of 1/8 of all the oil, gas, or other minerals … produced” is fully consistent with an in‑kind reservation of 1/8 of actual production (or its net proceeds on sale).

The Court emphasizes that it need not announce a categorical rule for all similarly worded clauses. Instead, it rests on the particular intent of these parties in 1947 as expressed in their original and correction deeds, read together.

3. Waiver Rejected

USM argued that Myers waived its in‑kind‑royalty theory by at one point asking the trial court to award “1/8 of the market value at the point of production.” The Court explains:

  • By that time, the district court had already rejected Myers’s in‑kind theory.
  • A party does not waive its primary position by later advancing a fallback position once its main argument has been definitively rejected.
  • Myers preserved its in‑kind position, and it is properly before the Court on appeal.

F. Remand on Royalty and Open Issues

Because the entire bench trial on royalties proceeded under an incorrect legal premise (market‑value measure only), the Court:

  • Reverses the royalty portion of the judgment, and
  • Remands for further proceedings to calculate Myers’s 1/8 in‑kind royalty (i.e., 1/8 of the net proceeds from the sale of salt attributable to Myers’s land).

The Court expressly declines to resolve:

  • Whether particular expert testimony or fixed‑price royalty contracts are proper evidence of market value;
  • Whether Myers has a valid claim for breach of the implied marketing covenant; or
  • Specific evidentiary disputes, which may look very different under the correct royalty measure.

V. Impact and Future Implications

A. Clarified Default Rule: Pore Space Belongs to the Surface Estate

Myers‑Woodward definitively confirms what treatises and some federal cases had predicted: under Texas law:

  • Ownership of the subsurface rock and pore space is part of the surface estate, unless explicitly conveyed otherwise.
  • The mineral estate holds non‑possessory use rights—an implied easement—limited to what is reasonably necessary to develop the tract’s minerals.

For operators and landowners, this has concrete consequences:

  • Hydrocarbon storage in salt domes: Companies storing crude oil, natural gas liquids, or refined products in Texas salt caverns must obtain rights from the surface owner, not just the mineral owner, unless existing deeds expressly grant those rights to the mineral estate.
  • Produced‑water / saltwater disposal: Injection wells that rely on depleted formations or caverns for storage/disposal presumptively burden the surface estate. Operators cannot assume the mineral estate alone suffices to authorize such uses, especially for fluids produced off‑tract.
  • Contract drafting: Future deeds, leases, and assignments should address, expressly and separately:
    • Who owns subsurface storage rights (pore space), and
    • Which estate (or third party) may use the subsurface for storage of off‑tract substances—whether hydrocarbons, produced water, or other materials.

B. Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) and Geologic Storage

Although the case does not involve CO2, its reasoning is highly relevant to emerging carbon capture and sequestration projects:

  • The Court’s broad statement that “the surface owner … owns the possessory rights to the space under the property's surface” supports the view that pore space for CO2 storage belongs to the surface estate.
  • This aligns with scholarly commentary (e.g., Anderson; Roberts) that surface owners have the stronger argument for pore‑space ownership.
  • Developers of CCS projects in Texas will likely need to:
    • Secure rights from surface owners, not just mineral lessees, for long‑term storage, and
    • Carefully evaluate old deed language for any express grants or reservations of “storage rights” or “formations.”

C. Limits on Mineral Owner’s “Dominant Estate”

The decision reins in expansive notions of the dominant estate:

  • Mineral owners cannot transform their implied right of surface use into a general right to operate storage businesses on the surface owner’s land for the benefit of off‑tract operations.
  • This restores balance between:
    • Mineral development needs, and
    • Surface owners’ legitimate interest in controlling long‑term, high‑impact uses of their subsurface (e.g., storage operations, disposal sites).

Existing operators who have relied solely on mineral leases or salt rights may now face:

  • Demands from surface owners for new agreements or compensation for continued use of subsurface space, and
  • Possible re‑structuring of storage projects to include surface‑estate-based rights or easements.

D. Royalty Drafting and Litigation

The royalty ruling has its own ripple effects:

  • Older deeds – Many mid‑20th‑century instruments use similar language (“1/8 of all the … minerals … produced from said land”). Courts may:
    • Scrutinize the entire transaction (including correction deeds) to determine whether parties intended a uniform in‑kind royalty across all minerals.
  • Mixed clauses – Where oil royalty language includes “delivery” but gas or other minerals do not, Myers‑Woodward shows that:
    • Courts will not reflexively assign different royalty types to different minerals absent clear textual signals.
    • Statements of “total royalty interest of 1/8” across minerals can weigh heavily toward a uniform in‑kind structure.
  • Economic stakes – The difference between:
    • 1/8 of market value at the wellhead (as determined by comparables or workback), and
    • 1/8 of actual sale proceeds from long‑term contracts,
    can be substantial—as illustrated here, where Myers alleged a more than seven‑fold difference.

Drafters of modern instruments should:

  • State clearly whether a royalty is:
    • In‑kind (with delivery rights),
    • Based on proceeds (gross or net, and from which point of sale), or
    • Based on market value (and as of what location and time).
  • Avoid relying on courts to infer the type of royalty from context decades later.

VI. Complex Concepts Simplified

A. Surface Estate vs. Mineral Estate

  • Surface estate: The ownership of the land’s surface and everything not specifically severed or conveyed as minerals. It includes:
    • The soil, buildings, vegetation,
    • The subsurface rock and pore space (the “matrix” of the earth), and
    • The right to use the land for any lawful purpose, subject to the mineral estate’s limited easement.
  • Mineral estate: Typically a severed property interest in certain substances (oil, gas, salt, etc.) in or under the land, plus:
    • Implied rights to use the surface and necessary subsurface to find, produce, and transport those minerals.

The mineral estate is “dominant” only in the sense that it has these implied use rights; it does not automatically own all subsurface space.

B. Pore Space and Salt Caverns

  • Pore space: The tiny voids or spaces in subsurface rock formations that can hold fluids (oil, gas, water, or injected CO2).
  • Salt caverns: Large voids created in salt domes by dissolving salt (often with water) and pumping the salt‑laden brine out. These caverns are:
    • Valuable as storage facilities for hydrocarbons or other substances, but
    • Legally, under this decision, owned by the surface estate unless expressly conveyed otherwise.

C. In‑Kind Royalty vs. Market-Value Royalty

  • In‑kind royalty:
    • The royalty owner receives a fraction of the actual production (e.g., 1/8 of the salt produced),
    • Or the financial equivalent—typically 1/8 of the actual proceeds from the sale of that share, often net of certain post‑production costs.
  • Market‑value royalty:
    • The royalty owner is paid cash equal to a stated fraction (e.g., 1/8) of the market value of production at a specified point (commonly “at the well”).
    • Market value is determined by comparable sales or methods like the workback method (starting from a downstream sale price and subtracting post‑production costs).

Which type applies depends on the language of the instrument and the parties’ intent, not on labels alone.

D. Implied Marketing Covenant (Briefly)

Most Texas oil-and-gas leases impose an implied covenant to market—a duty on the lessee to act as a reasonably prudent operator in marketing production, typically at the best possible price. Although Myers‑Woodward mentions a marketing‑covenant claim, the Supreme Court:

  • Does not analyze or decide that claim,
  • Leaves it for the trial court on remand, in light of the correct royalty measure.

VII. Conclusion

Myers‑Woodward v. Underground Services Markham is a landmark decision for Texas property and resource law. Its key contributions are:

  1. Subsurface Pore‑Space Ownership:
    • Reaffirming and sharpening the rule that the surface owner, not the mineral estate, owns the possessory interest in subsurface space, including salt caverns and pore space, absent contrary agreement.
    • Clarifying that mineral owners hold only a limited implied easement to use that space as reasonably necessary for mineral production from the tract.
    • Rejecting the contrary reasoning of the Mapco court of appeals decision.
  2. Limits on Off‑Lease Uses by Mineral Owners:
    • Confirming that mineral owners may not, without the surface owner’s consent, use the servient estate to store hydrocarbons or other substances produced from other lands.
    • Grounding this rule in longstanding Texas precedent prohibiting an increased burden on the surface estate for the benefit of additional lands.
  3. Royalty Construction:
    • Holding that the 1947 deeds reserve a 1/8 in‑kind royalty in oil, gas, and other minerals, including salt.
    • Demonstrating the importance of reading original and correction deeds together to ascertain a unified intent.
    • Requiring recalculation of royalties based on 1/8 of the actual sale proceeds (net of appropriate post‑production costs), not just abstract market value.

In practical terms, this opinion will shape:

  • How Texas courts and practitioners understand pore-space ownership and subsurface storage rights,
  • The contractual arrangements underpinning salt cavern storage, produced‑water disposal, and likely carbon sequestration, and
  • How older royalty reservations are interpreted in modern disputes involving non‑traditional minerals like salt.

Above all, Myers‑Woodward underscores a simple but powerful principle: empty space is not a mineral. Those who wish to exploit the economic value of that space must secure rights from the estate that owns it—the surface estate—unless a conveyance clearly says otherwise.

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