Corzelius v. Railroad Commission

• Decision Date: 19 July 1944
• Docket Number: No. 9451.,9451.
• Citation: 182 S.W.2d 412
• Parties: CORZELIUS v. RAILROAD COMMISSION et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 412

182 S.W.2d 412

CORZELIUS v. RAILROAD COMMISSION et al.

No. 9451.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Austin.

July 19, 1944.

Rehearing Denied September 27, 1944.

Appeal from District Court, Travis County; J. Harris Gardner, Judge.

Suit by F. M. Corzelius against the Railroad Commission of Texas and others to set aside as invalid an order of the Commission directing defendant H. M. Harrell to drill a directional well in a certain oil field to kill another well which had caught on fire, and to enjoin the defendant Harrell from proceeding under such order. From an adverse judgment, plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.

Dan Moody, and Black, Graves & Stayton, all of Austin, for appellant.

Grover Sellers, Atty. Gen., and E. R. Simmons, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee Railroad Commission.

Hornsby, Hornsby & Kirk, of Austin, for appellee H. M. Harrell.

BAUGH, Justice.

Suit was by appellant, plaintiff below, to set aside as invalid an order of the Railroad Commission and to enjoin H. M. Harrell from proceeding under such order. Trial was to the court without a jury and judgment entered that plaintiff take nothing; hence this appeal.

The particular order attacked was entered by the Commission on January 31, 1944, and was a reaffirmation and modification of a former order relating to the same subject matter entered by the Commission on November 19, 1943. The pertinent portions of the order under attack read as follows:

"Whereas, The Railroad Commission of Texas after due notice has held many hearings with reference to the conditions in the Bammel Field, Harris County, Texas, and pursuant to notice duly given held a hearing on January 28, 1944, to determine what rules, orders and regulations should be enacted and promulgated in order to prevent waste of oil and gas in Bammel Field, Harris County, Texas, and further to determine what remedial measures should be required to relieve the charged water sands in the field and to completely bring under control the F. M. Corzelius Meineke well in said field which has heretofore been found leaking, caught on fire and cratered, and further to determine whether the Commission's order of November 19, 1943, authorizing H. M. Harrell to drill a directional well in the Bammel Field, should be reaffirmed, amended, altered, or changed, and

"Whereas, From the evidence heretofore adduced the Commission finds that waste, as that term is defined in the statutes of this State, is now occurring in the Bammel Field and that the resulting condition remains serious, and

"Whereas, The Commission further finds that the F. M. Corzelius No. 2 Meineke well is still on fire and that much gas is being wasted, and further finds that the fresh water sands in this area are still charged with gas and that proper and necessary remedial work has not been accomplished to extinguish said fire and stop the contamination of fresh water sands in said area,

"Now, therefore, it is ordered by the Railroad Commission of Texas that H. M. Harrell be and he is hereby authorized as an agent of the Commission to continue to drill with all diligence the directional well provided for by the Commission's Order No. 3-5670, dated November 19, 1943, and said well is hereby directed to be drilled to a point at or near the bottom of the F. M. Corzelius No. 2 Meineke well and said H. M. Harrell is hereby directed as an agent of the Commission to proceed to attempt to kill the said F. M. Corzelius No. 2 Meineke well through said directional well in order to abate the waste which is now and has been going on in said field since the leak in the casing occurred in the F. M. Corzelius No. 2 Meineke well."

A review of the facts, circumstances and conditions existing in said gas field prior to and at the time the order attacked was entered, and up to the time of the trial hereof, will aid in a better understanding of the issues presented on this appeal. The Bammel field is located in Harris County. The proven field is owned entirely by the appellant and H. M. Harrell. The gas sands are about 6,200 feet below the surface. The original bottom hole pressure was about 2,750 pounds per square inch. Corzelius owned a lease on approximately 80 acres acquired by him in 1941, on which he had one well, known as the Meineke No. 2, with an original potential production of 250 million cubic feet of gas per day. The gas produced by him from that well under supervision of the Railroad Commission was sold by him for industrial and municipal use as fuel. The remainder of the field completely surrounding Corzelius's tract was owned by H. M. Harrell who had 15 wells, two of which were injection wells. The cost of drilling and putting a well into operation was approximately $100,000. Harrell was engaged entirely in recycling operations. That is, extracting the condensate from such gas and then repressuring the gas back into the producing strata through injection wells.

Corzelius drilled his well in 1942 and encased it part of the way with second run casing. A leak in his well developed, was detected by the employees of the Railroad Commission, and on June 30, 1943, the Commission ordered Corzelius to recondition his well so as to "stop any gas from leaking through the casing and charging the upper sands." Corzelius then, in early July, 1943, undertook to kill his well, obviously without success, by pumping water and thereafter baroid into it. After such efforts there still remained a surface pressure of 950 pounds per square inch in said well. In August, 1943, this well cratered, blowing large quantities of surface soil 150 to 200 feet in the air which formed a ramp about the well head when it descended. On August 30, 1943, the well caught on fire and was still burning at the time of the trial hereof on February 21, 1944, at which time the crater covered several acres. On August 30, 1943, the Commission again ordered Corzelius "to proceed at once to put the fire out * * * and to rework said well in such a manner as to bring it under control and put it back on production." Corzelius was unable to extinguish the fire and sought to relieve the gas pressure in the shallow sands in the vicinity of his well by drilling six relief wells, all to no avail, and in one of them the entire drilling rig disappeared into the hole and was lost.

Meantime, following the cratering of the Corzelius well on August 30, 1943, the shallow sands beneath the surrounding area continued to be surcharged with gas in increasing quantities, and the area so permeated by high gas pressures steadily expanded radially from the Corzelius well until by October 20, 1943, practically all wells over a large area, including relief wells, water wells and five of Harrell's producing gas wells had cratered, and said five Harrell gas wells had to be killed. There was no cratering of any wells until after the Corzelius well cratered. Water wells became geysers, one located approximately 2 miles from the Corzelius well throwing water 80 to 100 feet into the air. Others cratered and emitted gas which caught on fire. Gas seepage and surface blowouts occurred on farms and in the vicinity of some 60 or 70 homes, crops were destroyed, homes and farms were endangered, and one entire farm had to be abandoned. Fissures were formed over one farm 4,500 feet from said well through which gas escaped and when ignited continued to burn.

The testimony showed that the flames of the burning Corzelius well varied in height from 40 or 50 feet down to only a few feet, due, in the opinion of witnesses, to bridging down in the well. That when such flames were high gas pressure in the shallow sands in the surrounding area was diminished; but that when they were low such pressure in the same area proportionately increased within a short time. From these facts and circumstances the Railroad Commission was clearly authorized to conclude that such conditions were caused by leakage from the Corzelius well; and on October 20, 1943, ordered Corzelius to commence immediately the drilling of a directional well to kill the burning well. His failure or inability to do so resulted in the issuance by the Commission of the order herein attacked.

It cannot be gainsaid that in addition to the imminent hazards to life and property so created, enormous waste of the material resources of the State was taking place. An estimated 8 billion cubic feet of gas had been lost, not including the condensate that might have been extracted therefrom. Harrell had been forced to kill 5 of his producing wells; and the average bottom hole pressure of the field had been lowered approximately 300 pounds per square inch between July, 1943, and February, 1944, approximately 3 times as rapidly as had occurred in the six months immediately prior to July, 1943. With this general statement of the situation presented, we turn now to contentions made by appellant.

The first point presented is that drilling a directional well surfaced on Harrell's property and to be bottomed, by divergence from a vertical course, underneath appellant's land, constitutes a trespass upon appellant's property which the Commission had no authority to commit either itself or through an agent. This on the ground that the powers granted to the Commission by the conservation laws are in derogation of the common law, with authority to invoke penalties against property owners for violation of Commission orders, must be strictly construed, and that such conservation statutes nowhere give the Commission express authority to enter and enforce such an order as the one here in controversy.

We do not understand the appellant to deny that enormous waste of one of the natural resources of the State was taking place; nor that same constituted a violation of the statutes themselves and of the orders of the Railroad Commission; nor that the statutes (Title 102, R.C.S., Vernon's Ann.Civ.St. art. 6004 et seq.) impose upon the Commission the mandatory duty of waste prevention as therein...