Arizona Administrative Code › Title 12 - NATURAL RESOURCES › Chapter 5 - State Land Department › Article 22 - GEOTHERMAL RESOURCES › Section R12-5-2201 - Definitions

Current through Register Vol. 30, No. 28, July 12, 2024
In these rules and regulations the following terms shall have
				  the meaning herein given:
1. "Commission" means the Oil and Gas Conservation
				  Commission.
2. "Completion" or "completed well" means a well that has
				  produced or is capable of producing geothermal resources or has been determined
				  to be a dry hole, temporarily abandoned or plugged and abandoned, or has been
				  readied for other phases of exploitation.
3. "Department" means the State Land Department.
4. "Environment" means the sum total of all the external
				  conditions which may act upon an organism or community, to influence its
				  development or existence.
5. "Geothermal area" means the same general surface area
				  which is underlain or reasonably appears to be underlain by one or more
				  formations containing geothermal resources.
6. "Geothermal resources" means:
a. All products of geothermal processes embracing indigenous
				  steam, hot water and hot brines.
b. Steam and other gases, hot water and hot brines resulting
				  from water, other fluids or gas artificially introduced into geothermal
				  formations.
c. Heat or other associated energy found in geothermal
				  formations, including any artificial stimulation or induction thereof.
d. Any mineral or minerals, exclusive of fossil fuels and
				  helium gas, which may be present in solution or in association with geothermal
				  steam, water or brines.
7. "Lease" means a geothermal resources development lease
				  issues for state lands pursuant to the provisions of this Article.
8. "Lessee" means the holder of a lease or any assignee of an
				  original lease or part thereof.
9. "Operator" means any person drilling, maintaining,
				  operating, pumping or in control of any well, and includes the owner, when any
				  well is or has been or is about to be operated or under the direction of the
				  owner.
10. "Owner" means and includes the operator when any well is
				  operated or has been operated or is about to be operated by any person other
				  than the owner.
11. "Person" means and includes any individual, firm,
				  association, corporation or any other group or combination acting as a
				  unit.
12. "Waste" means any physical waste including, but not
				  limited to, underground waste resulting from the inefficient, excessive or
				  improper use of dissipation of reservoir energy or resulting from the location,
				  spacing, drilling, equipping, operation or production of a geothermal resources
				  well in such a manner that reduces or tends to reduce the ultimate economic
				  recovery of the geothermal resources within a reservoir, and surface waste
				  resulting from the inefficient storage or utilization of geothermal resources
				  and the location, spacing, drilling, equipping, operation or production of a
				  geothermal resources well in such a manner that causes or tends to cause the
				  unnecessary or excessive surface loss or destruction of geothermal resources
				  obtained or released from the reservoir.
13. "Well" means any well drilled in search of geothermal
				  resources or any development well on lands in areas proved to be underlain by
				  one or more formations containing geothermal resources or reasonably presumed
				  to contain geothermal resources or any well drilled for information purposes,
				  or any producing well or reentered abandoned well used for the injection of
				  fluids into the geothermal formation or disposition of fluids into
				  nongeothermal formations, or any well drilled for the purpose of stimulating
				  the heat of a formation or for the creation of heat in a formation by nuclear
				  or any other form of energy.
14. "Known Geothermal Resource Area (KGRA)" means an area in
				  which the geology, nearby discoveries, competitive interests, and other indicia
				  would, in the opinion of the Department, engender a belief in the people who
				  are experienced in the subject matter that the prospects for the extraction of
				  geothermal resources are sufficient to warrant expenditures of money for that
				  purpose.