Ohio Code 1509.20 – Prevention of waste – gas flaring
All owners, lessees, or their agents, drilling for or producing crude oil or natural gas, shall use every reasonable precaution in accordance with the most approved methods of operation to stop and prevent waste of oil or gas, or both. Any well productive of natural gas in quantity sufficient to justify utilization shall be utilized or shut in within ten days after completion.
Terms Used In Ohio Code 1509.20
- Gas: means all natural gas and all other fluid hydrocarbons that are not oil, including condensate. See Ohio Code 1509.01
- 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 hydrocarbons that were originally in a gaseous phase in the reservoir. See Ohio Code 1509.01
- Waste: includes all of the following:
(1) Physical waste, as that term generally is understood in the oil and gas industry;
(2) Inefficient, excessive, or improper use, or the unnecessary dissipation, of reservoir energy;
(3) Inefficient storing of oil or gas;
(4) Locating, drilling, equipping, operating, or producing an oil or gas well in a manner that reduces or tends to reduce the quantity of oil or gas ultimately recoverable under prudent and proper operations from the pool into which it is drilled or that causes or tends to cause unnecessary or excessive surface loss or destruction of oil or gas;
(5) Other underground or surface waste in the production or storage of oil, gas, or condensate, however caused. See Ohio Code 1509.01
- Well: includes a stratigraphic well. See Ohio Code 1509.01
The owner of any well producing both oil and gas may burn such gas in flares when it is necessary to protect the health and safety of the public or when the gas is lawfully produced and there is no economic market at the well for the escaping gas.