Unwilling drilling: Mineral-rights owners opposed to extraction face forced pooling, few options

As low prices for crude and natural gas continue to hammer the industry, oil and gas companies are turning to a 65-year-old state law that allows them to extract minerals, often against the will of a landowner who has mineral rights.

Oil companies have been beating a path to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission applying for permission to “force pool,” a process that allows operators to drill a well to access a pool of resources, often called a drilling unit, from under a parcel of land that has multiple owners with mineral rights.

It usually involves horizontal…