Energy Politics - Issue XI: Winter 2007
Article from: OGEL 2 (2007), in Roundup of Articles
Unitizing Oil and Gas Fields Around the World: a Comparative Analysis of National Laws and
Private Contracts
Jacqueline Lang Weaver, David F. Asmus
Introduction
Unitization is the joint, coordinated operation of a petroleum reservoir by all the owners of rights in the separate tracts overlying the reservoir. Unitization of oil and gas fields is commonplace in the United States where private ownership of minerals has often resulted in fractionalized ownership of the oil and gas in a common reservoir, such that tens, hundreds, and even thousands, of private landowners (who have leased their tracts in exchange for royalty interests) and their lessees (workinginterest owners) have interests in the same reservoir. Without unitized operation ...