Mississippi Code 1972 (2023) › Title 53 - OIL, GAS, AND OTHER MINERALS (§§ 53-1-1 — 53-11-33) › Chapter 11 - MISSISSIPPI GEOLOGIC SEQUESTRATION OF CARBON DIOXIDE ACT (§§ 53-11-1 — 53-11-33) › Section 53-11-5 - Definitions

As used in this chapter, the following terms shall have the meanings ascribed unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:
(a)
"Board" means the State Oil and Gas Board created by Section
53-1-5
.
(b)
"Carbon dioxide" means:
(i)
naturally occurring carbon dioxide;
(ii)
geologically sourced carbon dioxide;
(iii)
anthropogenic carbon dioxide; or
(iv)
carbon dioxide stream. The term includes phases of carbon dioxide, whether fluid, liquid or gaseous, stripped, segregated, or divided from any other fluid stream thereof.
(c)
"Carbon dioxide stream" means carbon dioxide that has been captured from an emission source (e.g., a power plant), plus incidental associated substances derived from the source materials and the capture process, and any substances added to the stream to enable or improve the injection process. This paragraph (c) does not apply to any carbon dioxide stream that meets the definition of hazardous waste under federal environmental laws and regulations.
(d)
"Class VI underground injection control wells" means wells that are not experimental in nature, that are used for geologic sequestration of a carbon dioxide stream, either alone or in combination with injection of carbon dioxide in other forms, and which inject beneath the lowermost formation containing an underground source of drinking water.
(e)
"Department" means the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality created by Section
49-2-4
.
(f)
"Enhanced oil or gas recovery project" means secondary recovery, pressure maintenance, repressuring operations, cycling operations, water-flooding operations, injection of carbon dioxide or other gaseous substances or any combination thereof, or any other form of effort calculated to increase the ultimate recovery of oil or gas or both from a reservoir.
(g)
"Gas" has the same meaning as provided in Section
53-1-3(d)
.
(h)
"Geologic sequestration" means the long-term containment of a gaseous, liquid, or supercritical carbon dioxide stream in subsurface geologic formations. For purposes of this chapter, "storage" and "sequestration" have the same meaning. This term does not apply to carbon dioxide capture or transport.
(i)
"Geologic sequestration facility" means a facility that receives and contains or sequesters carbon dioxide, or has done so, including:
(i)
The reservoir into which carbon dioxide is injected;
(ii)
Sequestration wells, monitoring wells, underground equipment, and surface buildings and equipment utilized in geologic sequestration, owned by or under the control of the storage operator; and
(iii)
Other property identified by the board as part of the facility.
The reservoir component of the geologic sequestration facility includes any necessary and reasonable buffer and subsurface monitoring zones designated by the board for the purpose of ensuring the safe and efficient operation of the geologic sequestration facility for the containment or sequestration of carbon dioxide and shall be chosen to protect against escape or migration of carbon dioxide. Nothing in this definition shall prevent orderly withdrawal of the contained carbon dioxide as appropriate or necessary to allow carbon dioxide to be available for enhanced oil or gas recovery projects or other authorized commercial, and industrial uses.
(j)
"Oil" has the same meaning as provided in Section
53-1-3(c)
.
(k)
"Oil and gas reservoir" shall mean a pool or field as defined in Section
53-1-3(e) and (f)
.
(l)
"Owner," except when used in the phrases "working owner" or "royalty owner," shall have its ordinary, accepted meaning.
(m)
"Person" means any natural person, corporation, association, partnership, limited liability company, or other entity, receiver, executor, administrator, fiduciary or representative of any kind.
(n)
"Reservoir" means oil and gas reservoirs and formations above and below oil and gas reservoirs suitable for or capable of being made suitable for the injection and storage of carbon dioxide therein, or any other geologic formation suitable for or capable of being made suitable for the injection and storage of carbon dioxide therein, but only those formations for which the boundaries have been or can be delineated as provided in this chapter.
(o)
"Royalty owner" means any person who possesses an interest in production of oil, gas or other commercial minerals, but who is not a "working owner" as defined in this section.
(p)
"Safe Drinking Water Act" means the Safe Drinking Water Act, as amended, Title 42, Chapter 6A, Subchapter XII (42 USCS Section 300(f) et seq.).
(q)
"Sequestration" means geologic sequestration as used in this chapter and may include the incidental storage of carbon dioxide associated with enhanced oil recovery or gas recovery project operations.
(r)
"State" means the State of Mississippi.
(s)
"Storage operator" means the person authorized by the board to operate a geologic sequestration facility.
(t)
"Underground source of drinking water" means an aquifer or portion of an aquifer that supplies any public water system or that contains a sufficient quantity of ground water to supply a public water system, and currently supplies drinking water for human consumption, or that contains fewer than ten thousand (10,000) milligrams per liter total dissolved solids and is not an exempted aquifer.
(u)
"Working owner" means the person who has the right to drill into and produce from any pool of oil, gas or other commercial minerals, and to appropriate the production either for himself or for himself and another or others.
Laws, 2011, ch. 437, § 3, eff. 3/23/2011.
Amended by Laws, 2022, ch. 369, HB 1214,§ 2, eff. 7/1/2022.
Amended by Laws, 2021, ch. 371, SB 2648,§ 2, eff. 7/1/2021.