2020 Wyoming Statutes
Title 30 - Mines and Minerals
Chapter 5 - Oil and Gas
Article 1 - In General
Section 30-5-101 - Definitions.

30-5-101. Definitions.

(a) As used in this act unless the context otherwise requires:

(i) The term "waste" means and includes:

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

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

(C) The inefficient storing of oil or gas;

(D) 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 of oil or gas;

(E) The production of oil or gas in excess of (I) transportation or storage facilities; (II) the amount reasonably required to be produced in the proper drilling, completing, or testing of the well from which it is produced, or oil or gas otherwise usefully utilized: except gas produced from an oil 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;

(F) Underground or aboveground waste in the production or storage of oil, gas, or condensate, however caused, and whether or not defined in other subdivisions hereof;

(G) The flaring of gas from gas wells except that necessary for the drilling, completing or testing of the well; and

(H) The drilling of any well not in conformance to a well density and spacing program fixed by the commission or other agency, state or federal, as to any field or pool during a national emergency when casing or other materials necessary to the drilling and operation of wells are rationed or in short supply.

(ii) "Commission" means the Wyoming oil and gas conservation commission herein created to carry out the provisions of this act;

(iii) The word "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 in the structure, is covered by the word "pool" as used herein;

(iv) "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 or of any governmental subdivision thereof; the masculine gender, in referring to a person, includes the feminine and the neuter genders;

(v) "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 or for himself and others;

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

(vii) The word "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. The word "gas" shall mean all natural gases and all hydrocarbons not defined herein as oil;

(viii) The word "and" includes the word "or," and the use of the word "or" includes the word "and." The use of the plural includes the singular, and the use of the singular includes the plural;

(ix) "Correlative rights" shall mean the opportunity afforded the owner of each property in a pool to produce, so far as it is reasonably practicable to do so without waste, his just and equitable share of the oil or gas, or both, in the pool;

(x) The term "surety bond or other guaranty" means a surety bond, a first priority security interest in a deposit of the proceeds of a collected cashier's check, a first priority security interest in a certificate of deposit or an irrevocable letter of credit, all in an amount and including other terms, conditions and requirements determined by the commission.