2023 Oregon Revised Statutes › Volume : 14 - Drugs and Alcohol, Fire Protection, Natural Resources › Chapter 520 - Conservation of Gas and Oil › Section 520.005 - Definitions.

As used in this chapter, unless the context requires otherwise:
(1) "Condensate" means liquid hydrocarbons that were originally in the gaseous phase in the reservoir.
(2) "Field" means the general area underlaid by one or more pools.
(3) "Gas" means all natural gas and all other fluid hydrocarbons not defined as oil in subsection (5) of this section, including condensate originally in the gaseous phase in the reservoir.
(4) "Information hole" means a hole drilled for information purposes only, including but not limited to core holes, stratigraphic holes or other test holes.
(5) "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.
(6) "Person" means any natural person, partnership, corporation, association, receiver, guardian, fiduciary, administrator, representative of any kind, or the State of Oregon and any public body as defined in ORS 174.109.
(7) "Pool" means an underground reservoir containing a common accumulation of oil and natural gas. A zone of a structure that is completely separated from any other zone in the same structure is a pool.
(8) "Owner" means a person who has the right to drill into and to produce from any pool and to appropriate the oil or gas produced therefrom either for others, for the person or for the person and others.
(9) "Protect correlative rights" means that the action or regulation by the board affords a reasonable opportunity to each person entitled thereto to recover or receive the oil or gas in the tract or tracts of the person or the equivalent thereof, without being required to drill unnecessary wells or to incur other unnecessary expense to recover or receive such oil or gas or its equivalent.
(10) "Seismic program" means the collection of seismic exploration data through a continuous field operation.
(11) "Sidetrack" means to reenter a well from the well’s surface location with drilling equipment for the purpose of deviating from the existing well bore to achieve production from an alternate zone or bottom hole location, or to remedy an engineering problem encountered in the existing well bore.
(12) "Unit area" means one or more pools or parts thereof under unit operation pursuant to ORS 520.260 to 520.330 and 520.230 (2).
(13) "Underground reservoir" means any subsurface sand, strata, formation, aquifer, cavern or void whether natural or artificially created, suitable for the injection and storage of natural gas therein and the withdrawal of natural gas therefrom, but excluding a pool.
(14) "Underground storage" means the process of injecting and storing natural gas within and withdrawing natural gas from an underground reservoir.
(15) "Waste of oil or gas" means:
(a) The inefficient, excessive or improper use or dissipation of reservoir energy of any pool, or the locating, spacing, drilling, equipping, operating or producing of any oil well or gas well in a manner that results or may result in reducing the quantity of oil or gas ultimately recoverable from any pool; or
(b) The inefficient storing of oil and the locating, spacing, drilling, equipping, operating or producing of oil wells or gas wells in a manner that causes or may cause unnecessary or excessive surface loss or destruction of oil or gas.
(16)(a) "Well" means a well drilled for the purpose of producing or storing oil or gas or other gaseous substances, reservoir pressure maintenance, disposal of produced fluids, and injection of water as part of a water flood.
(b) "Well" includes a well drilled in search of a new or undiscovered pool, or with the intent of extending the limits of a developed pool.
(c) "Well" does not include an information hole or a hole drilled as part of a seismic program. [1953 c.667 §1; 1961 c.671 §15; 1973 c.276 §1; 1977 c.296 §1; 2007 c.672 §1; 2009 c.294 §18]