Terms Used In Oregon Statutes > Chapter 522 - Geothermal Resources

• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Annuity: A periodic (usually annual) payment of a fixed sum of money for either the life of the recipient or for a fixed number of years. A series of payments under a contract from an insurance company, a trust company, or an individual. Annuity payments are made at regular intervals over a period of more than one full year.
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. ^{Source: OCC}
• Board: means the governing board of the State Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• By-product: means any mineral or minerals, exclusive of helium or of oil, hydrocarbon gas or other hydrocarbon substances, that are found in solution or in association with geothermal resources and that have a value of less than 75 percent of the value of the geothermal resource or are not, because of quantity, quality, or technical difficulties in extraction and production, of sufficient value to warrant extraction and production by themselves. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Completed geothermal well: means a well producing geothermal resources for which the operator has received the department's written assurance that the manner of drilling of and producing geothermal resources from the well are satisfactory. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Cooperative agreement: means an agreement or plan of development and operation for the production or utilization of geothermal resources in which separate ownership units independently operate without allocation of production. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Correlative rights: means the right of each owner in a geothermal area to obtain that owner's just and equitable share of the underlying geothermal resource, or an economic equivalent of that share of the resource, produced in a manner and in an amount that does not injure the reservoir to the detriment of others. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Decedent: A deceased person.
• Department: means the State Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Donee: The recipient of a gift.
• Donor: The person who makes a gift.
• Drilling: includes drilling, redrilling and deepening of a geothermal well. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Geothermal area: means any parcel of land that is, or reasonably appears to be, underlaid by geothermal resources. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Geothermal reinjection well: means any well or converted well constructed to dispose of geothermal fluids derived from geothermal resources into an underground reservoir. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Geothermal resources: means the natural heat of the earth, the energy, in whatever form, below the surface of the earth present in, resulting from, or created by, or that may be extracted from, the natural heat, and all minerals in solution or other products obtained from naturally heated fluids, brines, associated gases, and steam, in whatever form, found below the surface of the earth, exclusive of helium or of oil, hydrocarbon gas or other hydrocarbon substances, but including, specifically:

  (a) All products of geothermal processes, including indigenous steam, hot water and hot brines;

  (b) Steam and other gases, hot water and hot brines resulting from water, gas, or other fluids artificially introduced into geothermal formations;

  (c) Heat or other associated energy found in geothermal formations; and

  (d) Any by-product derived from them. See Oregon Statutes 522.005

• Geothermal well: includes any excavation made for producing geothermal resources and any geothermal reinjection well. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Land: means both surface and mineral rights. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Operator: means the person:

  (a) Who possesses the legal right to drill a geothermal well;

  (b) Who has obtained a drilling permit pursuant to ORS § 522. See Oregon Statutes 522.005

• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• Prospect well: includes any well drilled as a geophysical test well, seismic shot hole, mineral exploration drilling, core drilling or temperature gradient test well and drilled in prospecting for geothermal resources. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Reservoir: means an aquifer or combination of aquifers or zones containing a common geothermal or ground water resource. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Royalty interest: means a right or interest in geothermal resources produced from land or in the proceeds of the first sale of those resources. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• Unit agreement: means an agreement or plan of development and operation developed under the provisions of ORS § 273. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Unit area: means the area described in a unit agreement that constitutes the land subject to development under the agreement. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Unit operator: means the person designated in the unit agreement to manage and conduct the operation involving unitized land. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Unit production: means all geothermal resources produced from a unit area from the effective date of a unit agreement approved by the board under ORS § 522. See Oregon Statutes 522.005
• Violate: includes failure to comply. See Oregon Statutes 174.100
• Working interest: means an interest in geothermal resources or in land containing geothermal resources that is held under a lease, operating agreement, fee title or otherwise and under which, except as otherwise provided in a unit or cooperative agreement, the owner of the interest has the right to explore for, develop, produce or utilize the resources. See Oregon Statutes 522.005