What does the rule of capture permit an adjacent property owner to do?

The rule of capture is a legal doctrine pertaining primarily to the ownership of natural resources such as oil, gas, and groundwater. Under this rule, a landowner has the right to extract resources that are located beneath their property, even if those resources are located in formations that extend under the land of neighboring property owners. This means that if an adjacent property owner drills a well and successfully captures oil or gas that is pooling in a shared reservoir, they can legally take those resources as their own.

This principle encourages landowners to utilize their resources without waiting for approval from neighboring property owners, as long as they drill from their own land. It underscores the competitive nature of resource extraction, where capturing resources effectively equates to ownership. As a result, drilling and extracting fluids and gases that flow under another’s property, as allowed by the rule of capture, is legally permissible, which aligns with the answer provided.