Not sure if the disruption of the owner's surface activity forms the main basis for his claim to subsurface wealth, but interesting.
When violations of the cone occur in a way that does not disrupt the established use of the land, the common law quickly relaxes the rules of tresspass. Since an airplane at cruising altitude does not interfere with any land use, air travel across property lines does not constitute a tresspass; and conversely, one cannot claim celestial objects by choosing a moment in time when they pass through one's real estate cone and are not claimed by an equally enterpising neighbor.
Elegantly put, that last bit.
If oil is discovered under an Arab dwelling, then, of course, in equity the dweller claims the oil regardless of his technological abilities. Unable to exploit the find, he may be willing to sell his oil rights, but that is a different story.
Seems normal enough.
A typical for the Middle East scenario is that oil is discovered in the desert. While a royalty, or a government of the country may have a technical claim on the desert, there is no natural law provision for such claim, because the oil exploration in the desert will not disrupt any activity there.
I don't know that much about natural law theory, but I seem to remember that citizens delegate certain natural rights to legitimate governments in return for more effective protection of same. Within that fully developed and properly limited delegation, I can imagine that governments might limit land ownership to citizens.
That I can't imagine. Among the natural rights that an indivudual has is the right to exchange his property at will. If he wishes to exchange property with a non-citizen, the govenrment's job is to assist in the transaction, not to ban it.