The various oil strikes focused attention on a legal situation unique to the United States. Land ownership carried with it rights to all subsoil minerals, termed the common law “right of capture.” Oil companies, like other mineral companies, negotiated with each landowner for drilling rights. This right of capture continued for years despite the efforts of such industry giants as conservation-minded Henry L. Doherty of Cities Service Oil Company, who sought to institute oil field unitization. The right of capture ensured early exhaustion of oil fields and tragic waste of a valuable energy source. Wallace E. Pratt, a geologist and longtime Jersey Standard leader, has estimated that by releasing the natural gas that often underlies petroleum pools and by using poor production techniques, oil producers have wasted at least 75 percent of the oil and natural gas found to date in the United States.
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