Opinion ID: 1175472
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Feasibility Finding

Text: An agency's action must be set aside if the agency does not support it with sufficient factual findings in the record. Section 16-3-110, W.S. 1977, states: A final decision or order adverse to a party in a contested case shall be in writing or dictated into the record. The final decision shall include findings of fact and conclusions of law separately stated. Findings of fact if set forth in statutory language, shall be accompanied by a concise and explicit statement of the underlying acts supporting the findings.  (Emphasis added.) This Court has held that this statute imposes a duty on the agency to make findings of basic facts upon which its ultimate findings of fact or conclusions are based, without which there can be no basis for appeal. Big Piney Oil & Gas Company v. Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, Wyo., 715 P.2d 557, 561 (1986). The commission and the petitioners agree that economic feasibility is a basic fact which must be found before an ultimate finding of waste can be made under § 30-5-101(a)(i)(D), W.S. 1977. That statute defines waste as: The locating, drilling, equipping, operating or producing of any oil or gas well in a manner that causes, or tends to cause, reduction in the quantity of oil or gas ultimately recoverable from a pool under prudent and proper operations   . [7] In its brief, the commission correctly states that it would not be `prudent and proper operations' to conduct secondary recovery if secondary recovery was not feasible, or if the value of increased recovery exceeded the cost of incremental production. See LeBar v. Haynie, Wyo., 552 P.2d 1107, 1111 (1976). But the commission claims that the necessary finding of feasibility was included in its order. In finding number 8 the commission stated: The economics and feasibility of waterflooding or gasflooding are highly dependent on the timing of such operations. The proponents do not agree among themselves as to which method is better. The Commission must take economics into consideration; however, the Commission will not be placed in the position of determining what type of enhanced recovery should be initiated nor when. This finding immediately followed the commission's finding that 13,400,000 barrels of additional oil would be recovered by a miscible gas flood and 7,000,000 barrels by a water flood. When finding number 8 is taken in context, it clearly implies that the commission found both recovery operations to be economically feasible. The commission simply left it up to the owners to decide which of the two feasible methods they should adopt. We hold that the commission's feasibility finding complied with the requirements of § 16-3-110, W.S. 1977.