Ohio Law Has Some Gaps to Fill When it Comes to How Landowners Are Forced into Shale Drilling Arrangements

Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson discusses a September 2015 ruling of the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission a unitization case. She states that the commission’s decision, known as the “Teeter decision,” highlights the lack of statutory clarity in Ohio’s oil and gas statute regarding when the unitization section would apply, as opposed to the mandatory pooling section. Both unitization and mandatory pooling allow oil and gas producers to ask the chief of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management for an order to include land in a drilling area even when the landowner objects. The Teeter decision also provides an example of the commission substituting its judgment for that of the chief regarding what constitutes “just and reasonable” compensation for a landowner whose land is forced into a drilling unit by order of the chief