Unless the context otherwise requires, the terms defined in this section shall have the following meaning when used in this chapter:

(A) "Waste" means and includes:

(1) physical waste, as that term is generally understood in the oil and gas industry;

(2) the inefficient, excessive, or improper use, or the unnecessary dissipation of, reservoir energy;

(3) the inefficient storing of oil and gas;

(4) the locating, drilling, equipping, operating, or producing of any oil or gas well in a manner that causes, or tends to cause, 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 unnecessary or excessive surface loss or destruction or oil or gas;

(5) the production of oil or gas in excess of

(a) transportation or marketing facilities;

(b) the amount reasonably required to be produced in the proper drilling, completing or testing of the well from which it is produced; or

(c) oil or gas otherwise usefully utilized but gas produced from an oil well or condensate well pending the time when, with reasonable diligence, the gas can be sold or otherwise usefully utilized on terms and conditions that are just and reasonable shall not be considered waste if the production of such gas has been approved by order of the department;

(6) underground or above ground waste in the production or storage of oil, gas, or condensate, however caused, and whether or not defined in other subdivisions hereof.

(B) "Department" means the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.

(C) "Person" means any natural person, corporation, association, partnership, receiver, trustee, executor, administrator, guardian, fiduciary, or other representatives of any kind, and includes any government or any political subdivision or any agency thereof.

(D) "Oil" means crude petroleum oil and all other hydrocarbons, regardless of gravity, that are produced in liquid form by ordinary production methods, but does not include liquid hydrocarbons that were originally in a gaseous phase in the reservoir.

(E) "Gas" means all natural gas and all other fluid hydrocarbons not hereinabove defined as oil, including condensate because it originally was in the gaseous phase in the reservoir.

(F) "Condensate" means liquid hydrocarbons that were originally in the gaseous phase in the reservoir.

(G) "Pool" means an underground reservoir containing a common accumulation of oil and gas or both; each zone of a structure that is completely separated from any other zone in the same structure is a pool.

(H) "Field" means the general area underlain by one or more pools.

(I) "Owner" means the person who has the right to drill into and produce from a pool and to appropriate the oil or gas that he produces therefrom, either for himself or for himself and others.

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

(K) "Just and Equitable Share of the Production" means, as to each person, that part of the authorized production from the pool that is substantially in the proportion that the amount of recoverable oil or gas or both in the developed areas of his tract or tracts in the pool bears to the recoverable oil or gas or both in the total of the developed areas in the pool.

(L) "Developed Area" means a spacing unit on which a well has been completed that is capable of producing oil or gas, or the acreage that is otherwise attributed to a well by the department for allowable purposes.

(M) "Protect Correlative Rights" means that the action or regulation by the department should afford a reasonable opportunity to each person entitled thereto to recover or receive the oil or gas in his tract or tracts or the equivalent thereto, without being required to drill unnecessary wells or to incur other unnecessary expense to recover or receive such oil or gas or its equivalent.

(N) "Product" means any commodity made from oil or gas, and includes refined crude oil, crude tops, topped crude, processed 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, kerosene, benzine, wash oil, waste oil, blended gasoline, lubrication 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 herein enumerated or not.

(O) "Illegal Oil" means oil that has been produced from any well within the State in excess of the quantity permitted by any rule, regulation, or order of the department.

(P) "Illegal Gas" means gas that has been produced from any well within the State in excess of the quantity permitted by any rule, regulation, or order of the department.

(Q) "Illegal Product" means any product derived in whole or in part from illegal oil or illegal gas.

(R) "Certificate of Clearance" means a permit prescribed by the department for the transportation or the delivery of oil or gas or product.

(S) "Pollutant" means any emission that significantly derogates the quality of the air, water or land.

(T) "Pollution" means the act of emitting pollutants into the air or water or onto the land.

(U) "Royalty owner" means the person who pursuant to a lease arrangement with another has the right to receive, free of costs, an allocation of production or payments based upon the value of production.

(V) "Geothermal resources" mean the resources defined in Section 10-9-310 of the 1976 Code.

(W) "Sanitary landfill" means a solid waste disposal facility regulated by the Department of Health and Environmental Control.

(X) "Board" means board of the department.

HISTORY: 1977 Act No. 179, Part 1, Section 1; 1984 Act No. 375, Section 2; 1989 Act No. 162, Section 1; 1993 Act No. 181, Section 1236.