Wyo. Code R. 055-0001-1
Effective Date: 03/12/1993 to 02/09/1996
Rule Type: Superceded Rules & Regulations
Reference Number: 055.0001.1.03121993
oilgascon/general/01_Authority, _Definitions Agency OIL&GASCON Oil and Gas Conservation Commission Program GENERAL General Agency, Board or Commission Rules Chapter Name Authority, _Definitions Chapter No.1 Date Filed 03/12/93 Expr Date Supr Date Repeal Date Document Type RULES
Section 1. Authority. Section 30-219, Wyoming Statutes, 1957 (as amended).
Section 2. Definitions.
(a) Commission shall mean the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
(b) Supervisor shall mean State Oil and Gas Supervisor.
(c) Hearing shall mean any matter heard before the Commission or its Examiners.
(d) Authorized Agent shall mean a representative of the Supervisor as authorized by the Commission.
(e) Barrel shall mean 42 (US) gallons of 60@ Fahrenheit at atmospheric pressure.
(f) Cubic Foot of gas shall mean the volume of gas contained in one cubic foot of space at a standard pressure base and a standard temperature base. The standard temperature base shall be 60@ Fahrenheit.
(g) Day shall mean a period of twenty-four (24) consecutive hours.
(h) Log or Well Log shall mean the written record progressively describing the strata, water, oil or gas encountered in drilling a well with such additional information as to give volumes, pressures, rate of fill-up, water depths, caving strata, casing record, etc., as is usually recorded in normal procedure of drilling; also to include electrical, radioactivity, or other similar logs run, a lithologic description of all cores, and all drill stem tests, including depth tested, cushion used, time tool open, flowing and shut-in pressures, and recoveries.
(i) Wyoming Conservation Law shall mean Chapter 94, Session Laws of Wyoming, 1951, as amended. (See Sec. 30-216 through 30132, Wyoming Statutes, 1957).
(j) Pool shall mean an underground reservoir containing a common accumulation of oil or gas or both. Each zone of a general structure which zone is completely separated from any other zone, is covered by the work 'pool' as used herein.
(k) Person means and includes any natural person, corporation, association, partnership, receiver, trustee, executor, administrator, guardian, fiduciary or other representative of any kind, and includes any department, agency or instrumentality of the State of any governmental subdivision thereof; the masculine gender, in referring to a person, includes the feminine and the neuter genders.
(l) Owner means the person who has the right to drill into and produce from a pool and to appropriate the oil or gas he produces therefrom either for himself or others.
(m) Producer means the owner of a well or wells capable of producing oil or gas or both.
(n) Oil shall mean crude petroleum oil and any other hydrocarbons, regardless of gravities, which are produced at the well in liquid form by ordinary production methods, and which are not the result of condensation of gas before or after it leaves the reservoir.
(o) Gas shall mean all natural gases and all hydrocarbons not defined herein as oil.
(p) Oil Well shall mean a well the principal production of which, at the mouth of the well, is oil, as defined by the Wyoming Conservation Law.
(q) Gas Well shall mean a well the principal production of which, at the mouth of the well, is gas, as defined by the Wyoming Conservation Law.
(r) Well, when used alone in these rules and regulations, shall refer to an oil or gas well, injection or disposal well, or to a hole drilled for the purpose of producing oil or gas or both. It shall not include seismic, stratigraphic test, core or other exploratory holes drilled for the purpose of obtaining geologic information only.
(s) Designated Agent or Operator shall mean the designated local representative of the lessee or of the owner.
(t) Injection or Disposal Well shall mean any well used for the injection of air, gas, water or other substance into any underground stratum.
(u) Seismic Hole is one which will be used for geophysical purposes only.
(v) Stratigraphic Test or Core hole shall mean any hole drilled for the sole purpose of obtaining geological information.
(w) Multiple Zone Completion shall mean one in which two or more separate zones, mechanically segregated one from the other, are produced simultaneously from the same well.
(x) Legal Subdivision shall mean any regularly surveyed governmental quarter-quarter section or lot of approximately 40 acres.
(y) Fresh Water and Potable Water are defined as water currently being used as a drinking water source or having a total dissolved solids (TDS) concentration of less than 10,000 milligrams per liter (mg/l) and which (1) can reasonably be expected to be used for domestic, agricultural, or livestock use or (2) is suitable for fish or aquatic life.
(z) Geophysical Contractor shall mean a person who performs any geophysical operation to explore for oil, gas, or associated hydrocarbons, including a seismic contractor.
(aa) Seismic Contractor shall mean a person who conducts exploration for oil, gas, or associated hydrocarbons by the means of drilling seismic shot holes for the placing or detonating of explosives.
(bb) Client Company shall mean the person on whose behalf and for whose benefit the seismic contractor does his work or the person who hires the seismic contractor.
(cc) Collection Wells means reservoir access holes drilled from underground shafts or tunnels from which oil or gas is produced.
(dd) Stripper Production means a property or lease whose average daily production of crude petroleum and petroleum condensate including natural gas liquids did not exceed ten (10) barrels per day per well during the preceding calendar year.
(ee) Tertiary Production means the crude oil recovered from a petroleum reservoir by means of a tertiary recovery project to which one (1) or more tertiary enhanced recovery techniques meeting the certification requirements of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission or the United States Government are being applied.
(ff) Wildcat Well for the purposes of W.S. 39-6-301(a)(vii) and 39-6-302(p) means any oil or gas well designated a wildcat well by the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Wildcat wells are wells outside known fields or new wells which are determined by the Commission to have discovered oil or gas in a pool not previously proven productive. This determination shall be made by considering the criteria specified in Chapter III, Section 44 of these rules and under the procedure specified in Chapter III, Section 44 of these rules.
(gg) Oil Mining shall mean operations associated with the production of oil or gas from reservoir access holes drilled from underground shafts or tunnels.
(hh) Average Daily Production means the qualified maximum total production of domestic crude petroleum and petroleum condensates including natural gas liquids produced from a property or lease during the preceding calendar year divided by the number of calendar days in that year times the number of wells which produced and wells which injected substances for the recovery of crude petroleum and petroleum condensates including natural gas liquids from that property or lease in that year. To qualify as maximum total production each well must have been maintained at the maximum feasible rate of production in accordance with recognized conservation practices and not significantly curtailed by reason of mechanical failure or other disruption in production.
(ii) Aquifer means a geological formation, group of formations, or part of a formation that is capable of yielding a significant amount of water to a well or spring.
(jj) Casing Pressure shall mean the pressure within the casing or between the casing and tubing at the wellhead.
(kk) Commercial Disposal Well or Commercial Water Retention Pit. A commercial disposal well or commercial water retention pit is one that:
(i) Is operated primarily for profit from the disposal of produced water and/or deleterious substances for a fee; or
(ii) is a disposal well or pit for which none of its owners is an owner in any of the oil and gas wells which produce the water and/or other deleterious substances which will be disposed into said disposal well or pit.
(ll) Underground Source of Drinking Water. USDW means an aquifer or its portion:
(i) Which supplies any public water system; or
(ii) Which contains a sufficient quantity of ground water to supply a public water system; and (iii) Currently supplies drinking water for human consumption; or (iv) Contains fewer than 10,000 mg/l total dissolved solids; and (v) Which is not an exempted aquifer.
(mm) Abandoned oil field equipment means equipment and the contents thereof used in drilling or producing oil and gas wells and left on the lease where a dry hole or well is located as to which there has been no production reported to the Commission for the preceding twenty-four (24) months.
(nn) Lien Holder means those who have liens, on file with the Secretary of State and County Clerk of the County where the property is located, on the property of the owner of a well or operator, as reflected by the Commission records.
(oo) Horizontal Well shall mean a wellbore drilled laterally at an angle of at least eighty (80) degrees to the vertical and with a horizontal project exceeding one hundred (100) feet measured from the initial point of penetration into the productive formation through the terminus of the lateral in the same common source of hydrocarbon supply.
(pp) Complete application or complaint means a document or documents which:
(i) identifies the applicant or complaint, (ii) identifies the subject matter of the application or complaint and the statutory or regulatory provisions under which relief is requested, (iii) contains a brief statement of the circumstances supporting the application or complaint, and (iv) contains a plat map which identifies at a minimum: (A) the well or wells that are the subject of or may be affected by the application or complaint, (B) the governmental sections or portions thereof that are the subject of or may be affected by the application or complaint, and (C) adjacent or surrounding secondary recovery units, federal exploratory units, and existing drilling units if pertinent to the application or complaint.
(qq) Temporary Spacing Unit shall mean a specified area of land designated by the Commission for purposes of determining well density and location. A temporary spacing unit is not a drilling unit as provided for in W.S. 30-5-109 and does not provide a basis for pooling the interests therein as does a drilling unit.
(rr) Dormant Well shall mean a well which is no longer actively producing, monitoring or injecting; or which does not qualify as permanently abandoned, shut-in, or temporarily abandoned.
(ss) A temporarily abandoned well shall mean a well in which the completion interval has been isolated from the wellbore above and the surface. The completion interval may be isolated by a retainer, bridge plug, cement plug, tubing and packer with tubing plug, or any combination thereof.
(tt) Permanently abandoned well shall mean a well which is no longer considered active and has been permanently plugged and abandoned, as provided by these rules, in such a manner as to prevent migration of oil, gas, and water or other substances from the formation or horizon in which it originally occurred.
(uu) A shut-in well shall mean a well not currently considered active in which the completion interval has not been isolated from the wellbore above and where the wellbore condition is such that its utility may be restored by opening valves or by energizing equipment involved in operating the well. (vv) A Class II Well shall mean any non-commercial well used to dispose of water and/or fluids directly associated with the production of oil and/or gas, any well used to inject fluids or gas for enhanced oil recovery, or any well used for the storage of liquid hydrocarbons. Non-hazardous gas plant wastes may be disposed of in a Class II well pending Environmental Protection Agency co-approval. (ww) A Closed System includes, but is not limited to, the use of a combination of solids control equipment (e.g., shale shakers, flow line cleaners, desanders, desilters, mud cleaners, centrifuges, agitators, and necessary pumps and piping) incorporated in a series on the rig's steel mud tanks, or a self-contained unit that eliminates the need for a reserve pit for the purpose of dumping and dilution of drilling fluids for the removal of entrained drilling solids. A closed system for the purpose of the Commission's rules does not automatically include the use of a small pit, even to receive cuttings. (xx) A Sump is a buried, or partially buried, vessel constructed of man-made material including, but not limited to, steel, fiberglass, and/or concrete, which is used for the temporary collection of fluids. A sump can be closed top or open top. (yy) Recompletion, for the purpose of W.S. 39-6-302(t) and Commission Rule 342, means any downhole operation in an existing oil or gas well that is conducted to establish production of oil or gas from any geological interval not currently completed or producing in said existing oil or gas well. (zz) Workover, for the purposes of W.S. 39-6-302(t) and Commission Rule 342, means any downhole operation in an existing oil or gas well that is designed to sustain, restore or increase the production rate or ultimate recovery of geologic interval currently completed or producing in said existing oil or gas well. Workover includes but is not limited to: acidizing, reperforating, fracture treating, sand/paraffin removal, casing repair, squeeze cementing, or setting bridge plugs to isolate water productive zones from oil or gas productive zones, or any combination thereof. Workover does not mean the routine maintenance, repair, or replacement of downhole equipment such as rods, pumps, tubing, packers, or other mechanical devices.