Court Opinion

ID: 9665992
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:01:49.883061+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:21.862904
License: Public Domain

Conley Byrd, Justice, dissenting. I cannot distinguish between unitization by law and unitization in fact. The appellees here have done in fact with a bromine operation that which is authorized by law in oil and gas operations. When artificial force or pressure, as distinguished from the forces of nature, is used to recycle salt water or any other solution through the sands of any formation to remove the minerals therefrom a trespass is as surely committed as when artificial wind is created to cause my neighbor’s pecans to fall on my land. Furthermore, if I understand the majority opinion correctly, the appellant can proposition the appellees to join with him in a bromine operation and upon their refusal he can install as large a pump as man can devise and remove by capture all the salt water in the total basin including that generated by appellees’ recycling operation. Of course, this is contrary to what we held in Dodson v. Oil and Gas Commission, 218 Ark. 160, 235 S. W. 2d 33 (1950), because we there limited Dodson to the recovery of the 250 barrels of oil per day he had been obtaining from his oil well before the recycling process was commenced even though the well-was producing 350 barrels per day after the recycling was put in operation. I agree with so much of the opinion as deals with the property outside of recycling area.