purpose, not
the prevention of waste nor the undue drainage from the reserves of
other well owners, but rather the compelling of pipe line owners to
furnish a market to those who had no pipe line connections, the order
was held void as a taking of private property for private benefit.[364]
As authorized by statute the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, finding
that existing low field prices for gas were resulting in economic and
physical waste, issued orders fixing a minimum price for natural gas and
requiring the Cities Service Company to take gas ratably from another
producer in the same field at the dictated price. The orders were
sustained by the Court as conservation measures.[365]

Even though carbon black is more valuable than the gas from which it is
extracted, and notwithstanding a resulting loss of investment in a plant
for the manufacture of carbon black, a State, in the exercise of its
police power, may forbid the use of natural gas for products, such as
carbon black, in the production of which such gas is burned without
fully utilizing for other manufacturing or domestic purposes the heat
therein contained.[366] Likewise, for the purpose of regulating and
adjusting coexisting rights of surface owners to underlying oil and gas,
it is within the power of a State to prohibit the operators of wells
from allowing natural gas, not conveniently necessary for other
purposes, to come to the surface without its lifting power having been
utilized to produce the greatest quantity of oil in proportion.[367]

Protection of Property Damaged by Mining or Drilling of Wells

An ordinance conditioning the right to drill for oil and gas within the
city limits upon the filing of a bond in the sum of $200,000 for each
well, to secure payment of damages from injuries to any persons or
property resulting from the drilling operation, or maintenance of any
well or structures appurtenant thereto, is consistent with due process
of law, and is not rendered unreasonable by the requirement that the
bond be executed, not by personal sureties, but by a bonding company
authorized to do business in the State.[368] On the other hand, a
Pennsylvania statute, which forbade the mining of coal under private
dwellings or streets or cities by a grantor that had reserved the right
to mine, was viewed as restricting the use of private property too much,
and hence as a "taking" without due process of law.[369]

Water

A statute making it unlaw