Conclusions and Proposals for Reform

The real question is not how much unitization has occurred, as documented in the last chapter, but how much more is needed. While the commission in the past has undertaken internal staff reviews of some large oil fields in Texas to ascertain whether waste was occurring, ¹ it does not have a systematic policy of making annual or biennial surveys of the potential for increased efficiency of even the largest few hundred oil fields. ² Thus, the only method left to determine whether Texas still requires a compulsory unitization bill is to ask for opinion evidence from the experts in the fields. The major oil companies almost unanimously believe that a compulsory unitization bill is needed in Texas, largely because the lack of such a statute results in less-efficient and less-productive partial unitization and because the expense and delay of negotiating voluntary agreements is so high. ³ The one major who felt that compulsory unitization was not necessary stated that the Railroad Commission could indirectly force unitization through its control of prorationing and its authority to prevent waste.