• Coal mines often extend miles underground to extract minerals owned via mineral rights agreements.dirty coal industry and blue sky image by dinostock from Fotolia.com
  
  Mineral rights are the right to remove underground minerals, oil or gas from a property without taking possession of the surface rights of a particular parcel of land. A landowner may, for example, live on a piece of land that has large underground quantities of coal. The landowner may not be interested or able to extract those minerals and may sell those minerals to someone else for extraction. The rights to extract those minerals are called mineral rights. Mineral rights laws in Illinois are similar to mineral rights laws in other states.
  
  

General Mineral Rights

• Property owners in southern Illinois tend to have very few mineral rights. The rights to the minerals under the surface of their land have often been sold. Often those rights are general mineral rights, meaning that a company has bought the rights to all underground minerals under the land. If a company has mineral rights, they do not have to ask for permission to enter the property and extract the minerals.
  
  

Specific Mineral Rights

• In some cases, a particular parcel of land may have had the rights to a specific mineral owned by someone else. This is especially true in the coal belt of southern Illinois, where coal companies may have bought specific rights to only the coal under a particular piece of land. If a company has specific mineral rights, they do not need permission from the property owner to enter the property and extract the specific minerals they own.
  
  

Oil and Gas Rights

• Oil and gas rights are often sold separately from the rights to other minerals. In Illinois, mineral and gas rights are frequently bought separately from other minerals, like coal. In some cases, one company may own the coal rights, and another company may own the oil and gas rights on the land. If a company owns the gas and oil rights in Illinois, it does not require surface owner permission to enter the property and begin drilling.
  
  

Mineral Leases

• Mineral leases in Illinois are simple agreements to allow a company to enter land where the landowner still owns the mineral rights. A mineral lease gives a company the right to enter a property for a limited amount of time to drill and look for minerals. Mineral leases can range from several months to several years. If a company buys a mineral lease and does not explore during the term of the lease, the company's right to explore expires on the date the lease expires.
  
  

Problems With Mineral Rights

• Many coal mines in southern Illinois are longwall coal mines. In longwall mining, a mostly automated system removes a seam of coal. As the system moves along the seam, it allows the mined out areas to collapse behind the equipment. This often results in surface subsidence that can damage home foundations and make farmland difficult to farm because of uneven surfaces. In some cases, subsidence can trigger a change in the path of rivers and streams. In many cases, mining companies engaging in this type of mining may offer to buy a home or building above a coal seam.