§22C-8-2. Definitions.

As used in this article:

(1) "Board" means the Shallow Gas Well Review Board provided for in section four of this article;

(2) "Chair" means the chair of the Shallow Gas Well Review Board provided for in section four of this article;

(3) "Coal operator" means any person who proposes to or does operate a coal mine;

(4) "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 division foreseeably be commercially worked and will require protection if wells are drilled through it;

(5) "Commission" means the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission provided for in section four, article nine of this chapter;

(6) "Commissioner" means the Oil and Gas Conservation Commissioner provided for in section four, article nine of this chapter;

(7) "Correlative rights" means the reasonable opportunity of each person entitled thereto to recover and receive without waste the gas in and under a tract or tracts, or the equivalent thereof;

(8) "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";

(9) "Division" means the state Department of Environmental Protection provided for in chapter twenty-two of this code;

(10) "Director" means the Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection as established in article one, chapter twenty-two of this code or other person to whom the secretary delegates authority or duties pursuant to sections six or eight, article one, chapter twenty-two of this code;

(11) "Drilling unit" means the acreage on which the board decides one well may be drilled under section ten of this article;

(12) "Gas" means all natural gas and all other fluid hydrocarbons not defined as oil in subdivision (15) of this section;

(13) "Gas operator" means any person who owns or has the right to develop, operate and produce gas from a pool and to appropriate the gas produced therefrom either for that person or for that person and others. In the event that there is no gas lease in existence with respect to the tract in question, the person who owns or has the gas rights therein is considered a "gas operator" to the extent of seven-eights of the gas in that portion of the pool underlying the tract owned by such person, and a "royalty owner" to the extent of one-eighth of the gas;

(14) "Just and equitable share of production" means, as to each person, an amount of gas in the same proportion to the total gas production from a well as that person's acreage bears to the total acreage in the drilling unit;

(15) "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 reservoir;

(16) "Owner" when used with reference to any coal seam, includes any person or persons who own, lease or operate the coal seam;

(17) "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;

(18) "Plat" means a map, drawing or print showing the location of one or more wells or a drilling unit;

(19) "Pool" means an underground accumulation of gas in a single and separate natural reservoir (ordinarily a porous sandstone or limestone). It is characterized by a single natural-pressure system so that production of gas from one part of the pool tends to or does affect the reservoir pressure throughout its extent. A pool is bounded by geologic barriers in all directions, such as geologic structural conditions, impermeable strata, and water in the formation, so that it is effectively separated from any other pools which may be present in the same district or in the same geologic structure;

(20) "Royalty owner" means any owner of gas in place, or gas rights, to the extent that such owner is not a gas operator as defined in subdivision (13) of this section;

(21) "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;

(22) "Tracts comprising a drilling unit" means that all separately owned tracts or portions thereof which are included within the boundary of a drilling unit;

(23) "Well" means any shaft or hole sunk, drilled, bored or dug into the earth or into underground strata for the extraction, injection or placement of any liquid or gas, or any shaft or hole sunk or used in conjunction with the extraction, 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; and

(24) "Well operator" means any person who proposes to or does locate, drill, operate or abandon any well.