§22-6-1. Definitions.

As used in this article:

(a) "Casing" means a string or strings of pipe commonly placed in wells drilled for natural gas or petroleum or both;

(b) "Cement" means hydraulic cement properly mixed with water;

(c) "Chair" means the chair of the West Virginia shallow gas well review board as provided for in section four, article eight, chapter twenty-two-c of this code;

(d) "Coal operator" means any person or persons, firm, partnership, partnership association or corporation that proposes to or does operate a coal mine;

(e) "Coal seam" and "workable coal bed" are interchangeable terms and mean any seam of coal twenty inches or more in thickness, unless a seam of less thickness is being commercially worked, or can in the judgment of the department foreseeably be commercially worked and will require protection if wells are drilled through it;

(f) "Director" means the Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection as established in article one of this chapter or other person to whom the secretary has delegated authority or duties pursuant to sections six or eight, article one of this chapter.

(g) "Deep well" means any well other than a shallow well or coalbed methane well, drilled to a formation below the top of the uppermost member of the "Onondaga Group";

(h) "Expanding cement" means any cement approved by the office of oil and gas which expands during the hardening process, including, but not limited to, regular oil field cements with the proper additives;

(i) "Facility" means any facility utilized in the oil and gas industry in this state and specifically named or referred to in this article or in article eight or nine of this chapter, other than a well or well site;

(j) "Gas" means all natural gas and all other fluid hydrocarbons not defined as oil in this section;

(k) "Oil" means natural crude oil or petroleum and other hydrocarbons, regardless of gravity, which are produced at the well in liquid form by ordinary production methods and which are not the result of condensation of gas after it leaves the underground reservoirs;

(l) "Owner" when used with reference to any well, shall include any person or persons, firm, partnership, partnership association or corporation that owns, manages, operates, controls or possesses such well as principal, or as lessee or contractor, employee or agent of such principal;

(m) "Owner" when used with reference to any coal seam, shall include any person or persons who own, lease or operate such coal seam;

(n) "Person" means any natural person, corporation, firm, partnership, partnership association, venture, receiver, trustee, executor, administrator, guardian, fiduciary or other representative of any kind, and includes any government or any political subdivision or any agency thereof;

(o) "Plat" means a map, drawing or print showing the location of a well or wells as herein defined;

(p) "Pollutant" has the same meaning as provided in section three, article eleven of this chapter;

(q) "Review board" means the West Virginia Shallow Gas Well Review Board as provided for in section four, article eight, chapter twenty-two-c of this code;

(r) "Safe mining through of a well" means the mining of coal in a workable coal bed up to a well which penetrates such workable coal bed and through such well so that the casing or plug in the well bore where the well penetrates the workable coal bed is severed;

(s) "Secretary" means the Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection as established in article one of this chapter or other person to whom the secretary has delegated authority or duties pursuant to sections six or eight, article one of this chapter;

(t) "Shallow well" means any gas well, other than a coalbed methane well, drilled no deeper than one hundred feet below the top of the "Onondaga Group": Provided, That in no event may the "Onondaga Group" formation or any formation below the "Onondaga Group" be produced, perforated or stimulated in any manner;

(u) "Stimulate" means any action taken by a well operator to increase the inherent productivity of an oil or gas well, including, but not limited to, fracturing, shooting or acidizing, but excluding cleaning out, bailing or workover operations;

(v) "Waste" means (i) physical waste, as the term is generally understood in the oil and gas industry; (ii) the locating, drilling, equipping, operating or producing of any oil or gas well in a manner that causes, or tends to cause a substantial reduction in the quantity of oil or gas ultimately recoverable from a pool under prudent and proper operations, or that causes or tends to cause a substantial or unnecessary or excessive surface loss of oil or gas; or (iii) the drilling of more deep wells than are reasonably required to recover efficiently and economically the maximum amount of oil and gas from a pool; (iv) substantially inefficient, excessive or improper use, or the substantially unnecessary dissipation of, reservoir energy, it being understood that nothing in this chapter authorizes any agency of the state to impose mandatory spacing of shallow wells except for the provisions of section eight, article nine, chapter twenty-two-c of this code and the provisions of article eight, chapter twenty-two-c of this code; (v) inefficient storing of oil or gas: Provided, That storage in accordance with a certificate of public convenience issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is conclusively presumed to be efficient; and (vi) other underground or surface waste in the production or storage of oil, gas or condensate, however caused. Waste does not include gas vented or released from any mine areas as defined in section two, article one, chapter twenty-two-a of this code, or from adjacent coal seams which are the subject of a current permit issued under article two of chapter twenty-two-a of this code: Provided, however, That nothing in this exclusion is intended to address ownership of the gas;

(w) "Waters of this state" has the same meaning as the term "waters" as provided in section three, article eleven of this chapter;

(x) "Well" means any shaft or hole sunk, drilled, bored or dug into the earth or into underground strata for the extraction or injection or placement of any liquid or gas, or any shaft or hole sunk or used in conjunction with such extraction or injection or placement. The term "well" does not include any shaft or hole sunk, drilled, bored or dug into the earth for the sole purpose of core drilling or pumping or extracting therefrom potable, fresh or usable water for household, domestic, industrial, agricultural or public use;

(y) "Well work" means the drilling, redrilling, deepening, stimulating, pressuring by injection of any fluid, converting from one type of well to another, combining or physically changing to allow the migration of fluid from one formation to another or plugging or replugging of any well; and

(z) "Well operator" or "operator" means any person or persons, firm, partnership, partnership association or corporation that proposes to or does locate, drill, operate or abandon any well as herein defined.