§3. Definitions

Unless the context otherwise requires, the words defined in this Section have the following meaning when found in this Chapter:

(1) "Commissioner" means the Commissioner of Conservation of the State of Louisiana.

(2) "Field" means the general area which is underlaid or appears to be underlaid by at least one pool. It includes the underground reservoir or reservoirs containing crude petroleum oil or natural gas or both. The words "field" and "pool" mean the same thing when only one underground reservoir is involved; however, "field" unlike "pool", may relate to two or more pools.

(3) "Gas" means all natural gas, including casinghead gas, and all other hydrocarbons not defined as oil in Paragraph (7) of this Section.

(4) "Illegal gas" means gas which has been produced within the state from any well in excess of the amount allowed by any rule, regulation, or order of the commissioner, as distinguished from gas produced within the state not in excess of the amount so allowed by any rule, regulation, or order, which is "legal gas."

(5) "Illegal oil" means oil which has been produced within the state from any well in excess of the amount allowed by any rule, regulation, or order of the commissioner, as distinguished from oil produced within the state not in excess of the amount so allowed by any rule, regulation, or order, which is "legal oil."

(6) "Illegal product" means any product of oil or gas, any part of which was processed or derived, in whole or in part, from illegal oil or illegal gas or from any product thereof, as distinguished from "legal product," which is a product processed or derived to no extent from illegal oil or illegal gas.

(7) "Oil" means crude petroleum oil, and other hydrocarbons, regardless of gravity, which are produced at the well head in liquid form by ordinary production methods.

(8) "Owner" means the person, including operators and producers acting on behalf of the person, who has or had the right to drill into and to produce from a pool and to appropriate the production either for himself or for others.

(9) "Person" means any natural person, corporation, association, partnership, receiver, tutor, curator, executor, administrator, fiduciary, or representative of any kind.

(10) "Pool" means an underground reservoir containing a common accumulation of crude petroleum oil or natural gas or both. Each zone of a general structure which is completely separated from any other zone in the structure is covered by the term "pool" as used in this Chapter. However, to promote the development and production of marginally commercial sands, a zone may contain one or more common accumulations and the overall stratigraphic interval of the zone may be considered and treated as a pool for all purposes of this Chapter.

(11) "Producer" means the owner of a well capable of producing oil or gas or both.

(12) "Product" means any commodity made from oil or gas. It includes refined crude oil, crude tops, topped crude, processed crude petroleum, residue from crude petroleum, cracking stock, uncracked fuel oil, fuel oil, treated crude oil, residuum, gas oil, casinghead gasoline, natural gas gasoline, naphtha, distillate, gasoline, kerosene, benzine, wash oil, waste oil, blended gasoline, lubricating oil, blends or mixtures of oil with one or more liquid products or by-products derived from oil or gas, and blends or mixtures of two or more liquid products or by-products derived from oil or gas, whether hereinabove enumerated or not.

(13) "Solution mined cavern" means a cavity created within the salt stock by dissolution with water.

(14) "Solution mining injection well" means a well into which fluids, other than fluids associated with active drilling operations, are injected for extraction of minerals or energy.

(15) "Tender" means a permit or certificate of clearance for the transportation of oil, gas, or products, approved and issued or registered under the authority of the commissioner.

(16) "Waste", in addition to its ordinary meaning, means "physical waste" as that term is generally understood in the oil and gas industry. It includes:

(a) the inefficient, excessive, or improper use or dissipation of reservoir energy; and the location, spacing, drilling, equipping, operating, or producing of an oil or gas well in a manner which results, or tends to result, in reducing the quantity of oil or gas ultimately recoverable from a pool; and

(b) the inefficient storing of oil; the producing of oil or gas from a pool in excess of transportation or marketing facilities or of reasonable market demand; and the locating, spacing, drilling, equipping, operating, or producing of an oil or gas well in a manner causing, or tending to cause, unnecessary or excessive surface loss or destruction of oil or gas.

(c) The disposal, storage or injection of any waste product in the subsurface by means of a disposal well.

(17) "Waste product" means any liquid, sludge, effluent, semi-liquid or other substance resulting from any process, whether manufacturing or otherwise.

Amended by Acts 1976, No. 122, §2; Acts 1984, No. 768, §1; Acts 1993, No. 113, §1; Acts 2013, No. 368, §1.