South Carolina Code 48-43-320. Allocation of allowable production
(B) Whenever the department limits the total amount of oil, gas, or condensate that may be produced in any pool to an amount less than the amount that the pool could produce if no limitation were imposed, the department shall, subject to the reasonable necessities for the prevention of waste, allocate the allowable production among the several wells or producing properties in the pool so that each person entitled thereto will have a reasonable opportunity to produce or to receive a just and equitable share of the production.
Terms Used In South Carolina Code 48-43-320
- Condensate: means liquid hydrocarbons that were originally in the gaseous phase in the reservoir. See South Carolina Code 48-43-10
- Department: means the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. See South Carolina Code 48-43-10
- Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. Source: U.S. Courts
- 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. See South Carolina Code 48-43-10
- 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. See South Carolina Code 48-43-10
- 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. See South Carolina Code 48-43-10
- 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. See South Carolina Code 48-43-10
- 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. See South Carolina Code 48-43-10
(C) In allocating oil allowables to pools, the department may consider, but shall not be bound by, nominations of purchasers to purchase from particular pools or groups of pools. The department shall allocate the oil allowable from the State in such manner as will prevent undue discrimination among pools that would result from selective buying or nomination by purchasers.