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The Case For A Texas Compulsory Unitization Statute., Paula C. Murray, Frank B. Cross

St. Mary's Law Journal

Compulsory unitization of oil and natural gas reservoirs would substantially enhance the welfare of the United States and of Texas in particular. The present regulated free market for oil production produces both inefficiencies and inequities. Consequentially, oil exploration is discouraged, oil production is unnecessarily costly and wasteful, and the private distribution of oil revenues can be arbitrarily unfair. Compulsory unitization would remedy many of these shortcomings which result from extant structures. Unitization means the cooperative development of an entire reservoir of oil or gas. Compulsory unitization in most states also contains a variety of substantive and procedural prerequisites to unitization …