West Virginia Code 22C-9-1 – Declaration of public policy; legislative findings
(a) It is hereby declared to be the public policy of this state and in the public interest to:
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 22C-9-1
- Correlative rights: means the reasonable opportunity of each person entitled thereto to recover and receive without waste the oil and gas in and under his or her tract or tracts, or the equivalent thereof. See West Virginia Code 22C-9-2
- 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 defined as oil as that term is defined in this section. See West Virginia Code 22C-9-2
- Oil: means natural crude oil or petroleum and other hydrocarbons, regardless of gravity, which are produced at the well in liquid form by ordinary production methods and which are not the result of condensation of gas after it leaves the underground reservoir. See West Virginia Code 22C-9-2
- oil and gas: means "oil or gas or both". See West Virginia Code 22C-9-2
- Operator: means any owner of the right to develop, operate, and produce oil and gas from a pool and to appropriate the oil and gas produced therefrom, either for that person or for that person and others. See West Virginia Code 22C-9-2
- Pool: means an underground accumulation of petroleum or gas in a single and separate reservoir (ordinarily a porous sandstone or limestone). See West Virginia Code 22C-9-2
- Royalty owner: means any owner of oil and gas in place, or oil and gas rights, to the extent that the owner is not an operator as that term is defined in this section. See West Virginia Code 22C-9-2
- State: when applied to a part of the United States and not restricted by the context, includes the District of Columbia and the several territories, and the words "United States" also include the said district and territories. See West Virginia Code 2-2-10
- Unconventional reservoir: means any geologic formation that contains or is otherwise productive of oil or natural gas that generally cannot be produced at economic flow rates or in economic volumes except by wells stimulated by multiple hydraulic fracture treatments, a horizontal wellbore, or by using multilateral wellbores or some other technique to expose more of the formation to the wellbore. See West Virginia Code 22C-9-2
- unit: means the acreage on which one or more wells may be drilled. See West Virginia Code 22C-9-2
- Waste: means and includes:
(A) Physical waste, as that term is generally understood in the oil and gas industry. See West Virginia Code 22C-9-2
(1) Foster, encourage, and promote exploration for and development, production, utilization, and conservation of oil and gas resources;
(2) Prohibit waste of oil and gas resources and unnecessary surface loss of oil and gas and their constituents;
(3) Encourage the maximum recovery of oil and gas;
(4) Safeguard, protect, and enforce the correlative rights of operators and royalty owners in a pool of oil or gas to the end that each such operator and royalty owner may obtain his or her just and equitable share of production from that pool, unit or unconventional reservoir of oil or gas; and
(5) Safeguard, protect, and enforce the property rights and interests of surface owners and the owners and agricultural users of other interests in the land.
(b) The Legislature hereby determines and finds that oil and natural gas found in West Virginia in shallow sands or strata have been produced continuously for more than 100 years; that oil and gas deposits in shallow sands or strata have geological and other characteristics different than those found in deeper formations and unconventional reservoirs; and that in order to encourage the maximum recovery of oil and gas from all productive formations in this state, it is not in the public interest, with the exception of shallow wells utilized in a secondary recovery program, to enact statutory provisions relating to the exploration for or production of oil and gas from vertical shallow wells, but that it is in the public interest to enact statutory provisions establishing regulatory procedures and principles to be applied to the exploration for or production of oil and gas from deep wells, as defined in section two and oil and gas produced from horizontal wells.