UW SER Releases New Story Map Explaining Pore Space Leasing Practices

Researchers at the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources (SER), Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, and College of Law have published a new story map that explains pore space leasing practices and makes example agreements publicly available.

The rapid growth of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technology over the past two decades has prompted courts to refine the nature of property ownership within reservoir systems and has created a new market for contracts granting reservoir access and rights of injection and storage. Unlike house and oil and gas lease prices, however, there is little information on how reservoir rights are valued.

The research team spent the last two years collecting examples of agreements granting injection and storage rights to study this question.

Funded by the Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory, the research was led by the Jurisprudence of Underground Law (JOULE) and Energy Research group in SER and completed in collaboration with the 3D Visualization Center and SER Outreach team.

The primary authors include Tara Righetti, SER professor of law and Occidental Chair in Energy and Environmental Policies; Autumn Eakin, assistant director of SER's Center for Economic Geology Research; and Madeleine Lewis, associate research scientist in JOULE. The three bring a collective expertise of subsurface characterization, split estates and pore space valuation.

"In the oil and gas industry, existing leases between mineral owners and companies serve as a starting point in negotiations for mineral rights," says Righetti, who also serves as director of JOULE. "A similar practice will likely emerge for pore space acquisitions but, because these projects are so new, there are few publicly available benchmarks to which owners and developers can make comparisons."

This new story map represents the first step in consolidating existing information and making it publicly accessible.

"One of the main challenges for our research project was getting sufficient data through significant public records research and public records requests," Righetti says. "As a result, it was important to us to make this information more accessible in order to reduce asymmetric information on pore space agreements between landowners and CCUS project developers, and to make our primary data available so that other researchers can expand upon our work."

The research demystifies the private market for carbon dioxide storage rights by analyzing rare data from a multiyear study that reveals dozens of full public agreements and thousands of recorded memoranda. The project already has resulted in publication of two law review articles and a landowner guide.

The resulting story map establishes an essential industry baseline and serves as a practical, data-driven guide to help landowners, regulators and developers understand how these brand-new subsurface deals take shape in the real world.

"As the market develops, we'd like to continue gathering examples and expanding the geographic scope of this project," Righetti adds. "We, therefore, invite the public to reach out to us if they have other examples to share."

The story map is available on the SER website or can be viewed directly here.