Champlin Refining Co v. Corporation Commission of State of Oklahoma Corporation Commission of State of Oklahoma v. Champlin Refining Co
| Decision Date | 16 May 1932 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 122,486,485,s. 122 |
| Citation | 52 S.Ct. 559,86 A.L.R. 403,76 L.Ed. 1062,286 U.S. 210 |
| Parties | CHAMPLIN REFINING CO. v. CORPORATION COMMISSION OF STATE OF OKLAHOMA et al (two cases). CORPORATION COMMISSION OF STATE OF OKLAHOMA et al. v. CHAMPLIN REFINING CO |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Ciero Q. Murray, of Oklahoma City, Okl., Warwick M. Downing, of Denver, Colo., Kenner McConnell, of Columbus, Ohio, and Philip Kates, of Tulsa, Okl., amici curiae.
The refining company by this suit seeks to enjoin the commission, Attorney General, and other state officers from enforcing certain provisions of chapter 25 of the Laws of Oklahoma enacted February 11, 1915,1 and certain orders of the commission, on the ground that they are repugnant to the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and the commerce clause. The District Court consisting of three judges, 28 U. S. C. § 380 (28 USCA § 380), denied plaintiff's application for a temporary injunction, and No. 122 is plaintiff's appeal from such refusal. As final judgment has been entered, this appeal will be dismissed. The final decree sustains certain regu- latory provisions of the act, but declares invalid some of its penal clauses. 51 F. (2d) 823. No. 485 is plaintiff's appeal from the first-mentioned portion of the decree, and No. 486 is defendants' appeal from the other part.
The act prohibits the production of petroleum in such a manner or under such conditions as constitute waste. Section 1. Section 3 defines waste to include, in addition to its ordinary meaning, economic, underground, and surface waste, and waste incident to production in excess of transportation or marketing facilities or reasonable market demands, and empowers the commission to make rules and regulations for the prevention of such wastes. Whenever full production from any common source can only be under conditions constituting waste, one having the right to produce oil from such source may take only such proportion of all that may be produced therefrom without waste as the production of his wells bears to the total. The commission is authorized to regulate the taking of oil from common sources so as to prevent unreasonable discrimination in favor of one source as against others. Section 4. Gauges are to be taken for the purpose of determining production of wells. And the commission is directed to promulgate rules and regulations and to appoint such agents as may be necessary to enforce the act. Section 5. Since the passage of the act, the commission has from time to time made 'proration orders.'
The court made its findings which, so far as need be given here, are indicated below:
Plaintiff is engaged in Oklahoma in the business of producing and refining crude oil and transporting and marketing it and its products in intrastate and interstate commerce. It has oil and gas leases in both the Greater Seminole and the Oklahoma City fields. In each field it has nine wells. It owns a refinery having a daily capacity of 15,000 barrels of crude, and there produces gasoline and other products. It has approximately 735 tank cars, operates about 470 miles of pipe line, including adequate facilities for the transportation of crude oil from the fields to its refinery, and has about 256 wholesale and 263 retail gasoline stations in Oklahoma and other states which are supplied from its refinery. At the refinery it has gas- tight steel storage tanks with a total capacity of about 645,000 barrels. It does not use earthen storage or permit its crude to run at large, or waste any oil produced at its wells. All that it can produce will be utilized for commercial purposes. It also purchases much oil.
The Greater Seminole area covers a territory fifteen to twenty by eight to ten miles, and has eight or more distinct pools in formations which do not overlie each other. The first pool was discovered in 1925, and by June 15, 1931, there were 2,141 producing wells having potential production of 564,908 barrels per day. The wells are separately owned and operated by 80 lessees. About three-fourths of them, owning wells with 40 per cent. of the total potential capacity of the field, have no pipe lines or refineries, and are entirely dependent for an outlet for their crude upon others who purchase and transport oil. Five companies, owning wells with about 13 per cent. of the potential production, have pipe lines or refinery connections affording a partial outlet for their production. Nineteen other companies own or control pipe lines extending into this area having a daily capacity of 468,200 barrels, and most of them from time to time purchase oil from other producers in the field.
The Oklahoma City field, about 65 miles west of the Seminole, is about six by three miles, and part of it has been divided into small lots. All of plaintiff's leases are in that portion of the field. Oil was discovered there in December, 1928, and is being produced from four different formations more than 6,000 feet below the surface. In some parts of the area two or more overlie each other, and at many points the wells penetrate all overlying formations and are capable of producing from all of them. The field is not yet fully developed. June 15, 1931, there were 746 producing wells having an estimated potential of 2,987,993 barrels per day. These wells are owned by 53 different lessees. Thirty-six of them are wholly, and eight are partially, nonintegrated; they operate wells having about 90 per cent. of total potential production. The ten producing companies control pipe lines extending into this area with a carrying capacity of only 316,000 barrels per day. Most of them from time to time purchase oil from other producers there.
Crude oil and natural gas occur together or in close proximity to each other, and the gas in a pool moves the contents toward the point of least resistance. When wells are drilled into a pool, the oil and gas move from place to place. If some of the wells are permitted to produce a greater proportion of their capacity than others, drainage occurs from the less active to the more active. There is a heavy gas pressure in the Oklahoma City field. Where proportional taking from the wells in flush pools is not enforced, operators who do not have physical or market outlets are forced to produce to capacity in order to prevent drainage to others having adequate outlets. In Oklahoma prior to the passage of the act, large quantities of oil produced in excess of transportation facilities or demand therefor were stored in surface tanks, and, by reason of seepage, rain, fire, and evaporation, enormous waste occurred. Uncontrolled flow of flush or semiflush wells for any considerable period exhausts an excessive amount of pressure, wastefully uses the gas, and greatly lessens ultimate recovery. Appropriate utilization of gas energy is especially important in the Oklahoma City field where, because of the great depth of the wells, the cost of artificially recovering the oil would be very high.
The first of the present series of proration orders took effect August 1, 1927, and applied to the then flush and semiflush pools in the Seminole. Similar orders have been in effect almost continuously since that time. Soon after the discovery of oil in the Oklahoma City field, production exceeded market demand there. The first proration order applicable in that field took effect October 15 1929. Such orders usually covered short terms because of rapidly changing potential production and market demand from each of the pools.
All the proration orders attacked by plaintiff were made pursuant to sections 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of the act. Each, and the findings that it contained, were made after notice to all interested persons and were based upon evidence adduced at the hearings. The allegations of the complaint that the orders were made by the commission without having heard the testimony of witnesses under oath or any legal evidence were not sustained before the court.
The commission construes the act as intended to empower it to limit production to the amount of the reasonable daily market demand and to require ratable production by all taking from the common source. In current orders it has found that waste of oil will result in the prorated areas unless production is limited to such demand. In order No. 5189, June 30, 1930, it found that the potential production in the United States was approximately 4,730,000 barrels per day, and that imports amounted to about 300,000 barrels, creating a supply of over 5,000,000 barrels as against an estimated domestic and export demand of 2,800,000 barrels. And it found that the existing stocks of crude in storage exceeded the needs of the industry, and that purchasers were unwilling to buy in Oklahoma for storage in any amount sufficient to take the surplus of potential production in that state. Similar findings are contained in the commission's subsequent orders.
Based on findings of the daily potential of the Oklahoma City field and the amount of the market outlet for oil there, that is, the amount that could be produced without waste as defined by the act, plaintiff at the time of the trial was limited by the proration orders to about 6 per cent. of the total production of its wells in that field. And the orders also operated to restrict plaintiff to much less than the potential production of its nine wells in...
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