Crawford

This appeal involves the interpretation and application to certain parcels of land of section 3600 of the Public Resources Code regulating the spacing of oil and gas wells. The accompanying diagram shows the relationship of the parcels and the wells thereon.

All oil wells are producing from the Colgrove formation in the Cuyama oil field. The dotted line across the diagram represents the Hadley-Stone fault, running in a northwest-southeast direction. This fault acts as a barrier to oil and gas and thus limits production to that portion of the Col-grove formation north and east of the fault.

All of the property is owned by H. S. Russell. In 1945 he leased the property to the Norris Oil Company. Subsequently in 1945, Norris subleased parcels two and three to predecessors in interest of plaintiff Richfield Oil Corporation. In 1947 Norris subleased parcels one and four to Carpenter and Henderson, plaintiffs in intervention. In 1948 Carpenter and Henderson subleased parcels one and four to Anderson Associates who in turn assigned an undivided half-interest therein to Richfield. Shortly thereafter Anderson Associates and Richfield quitclaimed all their interest in parcel four to…