It is declared to be in the public interest to foster, encourage, and promote the development, production, and utilization of natural resources of oil and gas in the state of Utah in such a manner as will prevent waste; to authorize and to provide for the operation and development of oil and gas properties in such a manner that a greater ultimate recovery of oil and gas may be obtained and that the correlative rights of all owners may be fully protected; to provide exclusive state authority over oil and gas exploration and development as regulated under the provisions of this chapter; to encourage, authorize, and provide for voluntary agreements for cycling, recycling, pressure maintenance, and secondary recovery operations in order that the greatest possible economic recovery of oil and gas may be obtained within the state to the end that the land owners, the royalty owners, the producers, and the general public may realize and enjoy the greatest possible good from these vital natural resources.
Utah Code § 40-6-1
Declaration of public interest
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case Bennion v. ANR Production Co. (1991)
Most recently applied in J.P. Furlong Co. v. Bd. of Oil, Gas & Mining (June 2018)
Enacted by Chapter 205, 1983 General Session
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Utah State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Utah statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.