The legislature finds and determines that it is desirable and necessary under the circumstances and for the purposes hereinafter set out to authorize and provide for the unitized management, operation and further development of the oil and gas properties to which the Statutory Unitization Act is applicable, to the end that greater ultimate recovery may be had therefrom, waste prevented, and correlative rights protected of all owners of mineral interests in each unitized area. It is the intention of the legislature that the Statutory Unitization Act apply to any type of operation that will substantially increase the recovery of oil above the amount that would be recovered by primary recovery alone and not to what the industry understands as exploratory units.
History: 1953 Comp., § 65-14-1, enacted by Laws 1975, ch. 293, § 1.
Law reviews. — For article, "On an Institutional Arrangement for Developing Oil and Gas in the Gulf of Mexico," see 26 Nat. Res. J. 717 (1986).
Structure New Mexico Statutes
Article 7 - Statutory Unitization Act
Section 70-7-1 - Purpose of act.
Section 70-7-3 - Additional powers and duties of the oil conservation division.
Section 70-7-5 - Requisites of application for unitization.
Section 70-7-6 - Matters to be found by the division precedent to issuance of unitization order.
Section 70-7-7 - Division orders.
Section 70-7-8 - Ratification or approval of plan by owners.
Section 70-7-9 - Amendment of plan of unitization.
Section 70-7-10 - Previously established units.
Section 70-7-11 - Unit operations of less than an entire pool.
Section 70-7-12 - Operation; expressed or implied covenants.
Section 70-7-13 - Income from unitized substances.
Section 70-7-14 - Lien for costs.
Section 70-7-15 - Liability for expenses.
Section 70-7-16 - Division orders.
Section 70-7-17 - Property rights.
Section 70-7-18 - Existing rights, rights in unleased land and royalties and lease burdens.
Section 70-7-19 - Agreements not violative of laws governing monopolies or restraint of trade.