Ohio Administrative Code › Title 1501:9 - Division of Mineral Resources Management - Oil and Gas › Chapter 1501:9-1 - Oil Well Drilling › Section 1501:9-1-01 - General provisions

Current through all regulations passed and filed through July 1, 2024
(A) Definitions. As used in Chapters 1501:9-1
			 to 1501:9-12 of the Administrative Code:
(1)
			 "Access road" means any road used as primary ingress and egress to the
			 wellhead, tank battery, and associated equipment used in the production of a
			 well.
(2) "Active underground mine"
			 means an underground excavation of coal or industrial minerals in any phase of
			 the mining operation which is required to be permitted by the division of
			 mineral resources management, regularly and routinely examined by
			 state-certified fore persons, and inspected quarterly by mine safety inspectors
			 of the division of mineral resources management for compliance with mine safety
			 laws, including the active workings of a mine, any and all sealed or unsealed
			 boreholes, shafts, drifts, slopes or any other openings to the surface, and any
			 and all in-seam contiguous, abandoned areas physically connected to but
			 separated by permanently constructed seals from the current active workings
			 where miners are able to work or travel.
(3) "Adverse communication" means a negative
			 communication at an offset well that may include damage to production tubing,
			 casing, or the wellhead, or sudden significant increased volume of brine from
			 the subsequent hydraulic fracturing treatment of another well in the same
			 subject tract.
(4) "API" means the
			 American petroleum institute.
(5)
			 "Applicant" or "person" means a natural person, corporation, association,
			 partnership, receiver, trustee, executor, administrator, guardian, fiduciary,
			 or other representative of any kind, and includes any government or a political
			 subdivision or agency thereof. The masculine gender, in referring to a person,
			 includes the feminine and the neuter genders.
(6) "Annulus" means the space between a
			 wellbore and tubulars or between tubulars where fluid can flow.
(7) "ASTM" means ASTM international, formerly
			 known as the American society for testing and materials.
(8) "Authorized representative of the owner"
			 means any contractor, sub-contactor or person directed by an owner or owner
			 holding a permit, to complete any aspect of well site construction, drilling,
			 production, and restoration.
(9)
			 "Best Management Practices (BMPs) For Oil and Gas Well Site Construction
			 Manual" means practices, procedures and structures used to minimize accelerated
			 erosion from oil and gas well site construction and well site restoration
			 outlined in the manual, dated June 2013, which can be located at
			 
									the division's website, oilandgas.ohiodnr.gov or
			 by contacting the division of oil and gas resources management.
(10) "Best Management Practices (BMPs) For
			 Pre-drilling Water Sampling Manual" means methods for ground water sampling
			 from private or public supplies using practices, processes and procedures
			 outlined in the manual, dated September 20, 2012, which can be located at
			 
									the division's website, oilandgas.ohiodnr.gov or
			 by contacting the division of oil and gas resources management.
(11) "Brine" has the same meaning as in
			 section 1509.01 of the Revised
			 Code.
(12) "Cage" means a wire,
			 wood, metal or similar material surrounding a wellhead.
(13) "Casing shoe test" means a pressure test
			 conducted after drilling into the confining strata below a cemented casing
			 string seat to evaluate pressure containment integrity and to determine the
			 maximum fluid density that the strata can contain without breaking
			 down.
(14) "Chief" means the chief
			 of the division of oil and gas resources management.
(15) "Condensate" means liquid hydrocarbons
			 that were originally in the gaseous phase in the reservoir.
(16) "Conductor casing" means one or more
			 strings of casing set and cemented to provide a base for an air body for
			 diversion of shallow naturally occurring natural gas including coalbed methane
			 and to accomplish one or more of the following well construction objectives:
(a) Stabilize unconsolidated
			 sediments;
(b) Isolate shallow
			 aquifers that provide or are capable of providing groundwater for water wells
			 and springs in the vicinity of the well; or
(c) Isolate groundwater before penetrating
			 the workings of an active underground mine.
(17) "Contractor" means any third party
			 engaged by an owner to conduct drilling, producing, and other
			 operations.
(18) "Direct
			 notification" means, person to person or phone contact between a well owner,
			 owner holding a permit or their authorized representative and a division
			 inspector and/or division field office staff. Voice mail messages are not
			 considered direct notification.
(19) "Division" means the division of oil and
			 gas resources management, department of natural resources.
(20) "Drilling unit" has the same meaning as
			 in section 1509.01 of the Revised
			 Code.
(21) "Drive pipe" means a
			 casing string that is driven through unconsolidated sediment to stabilize the
			 wellbore and isolate associated groundwater.
(22) "Exempt domestic well" has the same
			 meaning as in section
			 1509.01 of the Revised Code.
(23) "Field" means the general
			 area underlaid by one or more pools.
(24) "Gas" means all natural gas and all
			 other fluid hydrocarbons not defined in this paragraph as oil, including
			 condensate.
(25) "GPS" means global
			 positioning system, which is a global satellite-based system for determining
			 precise location on Earth.
(26)
			 "Horizontal well" has the same meaning as in section
			 1509.01 of the Revised
			 Code.
(27) "Inhabited structure"
			 means any inhabited private dwelling house and any public building which may be
			 used as a place of resort, assembly, education, entertainment, lodging, trade,
			 manufacture, repair, storage, traffic, or occupancy by the public.
(28) "Inspector" means the person who has
			 been designated by the chief under section
			 1509.03 of the Revised Code, to
			 administer and enforce provisions of Chapter 1509. of the Revised Code or rules
			 thereunder.
(29) "Intermediate
			 casing" means one or more strings of casing set after surface casing has been
			 cemented through the base of the deepest underground source of drinking water,
			 but before drilling into the permitted hydrocarbon reservoir(s) to isolate
			 hydrocarbon or brine bearing flow zones, stabilize the wellbore, to isolate
			 protected groundwater if encountered after drilling below surface casing,
			 isolate lost circulation zones or other potential geologic hazards, or serve as
			 a base for well control equipment.
(30) "Lead cement" means the first, typically
			 less-dense slurry pumped during primary cementing operations to seal intervals
			 above those sealed by the tail cement and to reduce the hydrostatic pressure of
			 the cement slurry column at the casing seat while the slurry sets.
(31) "Liner" means a string of casing set and
			 cemented which does not extend to surface. Liners are anchored or suspended
			 inside the previous casing string and may serve the purpose of intermediate or
			 production casing strings.
(32)
			 "Manager" means the operator, whether the owner or not, of a well or
			 wells.
(33) "Map" means a graphic
			 representation of the location and size of the existing or proposed objects it
			 is made to represent, accurately drawn to a scale no smaller than four hundred
			 feet to the inch.
(34) "Mine
			 string" means a string of casing set and cemented to isolate a mine void,
			 rubble zone, or a mined seam.
(35)
			 "Minimum internal yield pressure" means the minimum internal pressure at which
			 permanent casing deformation could take place assuming no external
			 pressure.
(36) "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.
(37) "Oil and gas" means
			 oil or gas or both. The use of the plural includes the singular, and the use of
			 the singular includes the plural.
(38) "Owner" means the person who has the
			 right to drill on a tract or drilling unit and to drill into and produce from a
			 pool and to appropriate the oil or gas that he produces therefrom either for
			 himself or for others.
(39) "Pool"
			 means an underground reservoir containing a common accumulation of oil or gas,
			 or both, but does not include a gas storage reservoir. Each zone of a
			 geological structure and each zone of a geological feature that is completely
			 separated from any other zone in the same structure or feature may contain a
			 separate pool.
(40) "Potable water
			 supply" means water that is satisfactory for drinking, culinary, and domestic
			 purposes as defined by the Ohio department of health for private water systems
			 in paragraph (LLL) of rule
			 3701-28-01 of the
			 Administrative Code.
(41)
			 "Potential flow zone" means any zone in a well where hydrocarbons or other
			 fluids can flow when wellbore pressure is less than pore pressure and isolation
			 of such zones is necessary to:
(a) Isolate
			 hydrocarbons that may be present in testable or commercial
			 quantities;
(b) Prevent
			 over-pressurization of the surface casing annulus; or
(c) Maintain well control when drilling on
			 fluid below the zone.
(42) "Producer" means the owner of a well
			 capable of or producing oil or gas or both.
(43) "Production casing" means a string of
			 casing set to isolate the permitted hydrocarbon bearing reservoir(s), and other
			 pressurized flow or corrosive, hydrogen sulfide-bearing zones not effectively
			 isolated by previous casing(s).
(44) "Protection of correlative rights" means
			 administration and enforcement of these rules and regulations by the chief in
			 such a manner as to afford reasonable opportunity to every person entitled
			 thereto to recover and receive the oil and gas in and under his tract or
			 tracts, or the equivalent thereof, without having to drill unnecessary wells or
			 to incur other unnecessary expense.
(45) "Rathole" or "mousehole" means the
			 temporary storage space that is used to store the kelly or drill pipe while
			 adding a new section of pipe to the drill string at some rotary drilling
			 rigs.
(46) "Rules adopted or
			 promulgated by the chief," "rules adopted thereunder," "rules herein,
			 "applicable rules," "these rules and regulations," or "these rules" means all
			 rules contained in Chapters 1501:9-1 to 1501:9-12 of the Administrative
			 Code.
(47) "Spudding" means to
			 begin drilling, to start the hole.
(48) "Storage protective boundary" means the
			 line denoting the outermost protected area surrounding a storage reservoir
			 certified by the federal energy regulatory commission (FERC), or, absent a FERC
			 certificate, the boundary as defined by divisions (D)(2) and (E) of section
			 1571.01 of the Revised
			 Code.
(49) "Subject tract" means a
			 tract or tracts upon which a person proposes to drill, reopen, deepen, plug
			 back, or re-work one or more wells for producing oil and natural gas.
(50) "Surface casing" means a string of
			 casing set and cemented to isolate and protect the deepest underground source
			 of drinking water and to serve as a base for well control equipment.
(51) "Sustained annular pressure" means
			 pressure in an annulus between casing strings that is measurable at the
			 wellhead and rebuilds to at least the same shut-in pressure after pressure has
			 been released.
(52) "Tail cement"
			 means the last, typically higher density slurry pumped during primary cementing
			 operations to seal the casing seat and isolate specific intervals providing
			 faster thickening times and higher early compressive strength.
(53) "Take point" means any point along a
			 well bore where oil, gas, or oil and gas may be produced from a pool.
(54) "Tank battery" means any combination of
			 oil collection tanks, brine collection tanks, and associated equipment within a
			 containment dike.
(55) "Tract" has
			 the same meaning as in section
			 1509.01 of the Revised
			 Code.
(56) "Urbanized area" means
			 an area where a well or production facilities of a well are located within a
			 municipal corporation or within a township that has an unincorporated
			 population of more than five thousand in the most recent federal decennial
			 census prior to the issuance of the permit for the well or production
			 facilities.
(57) "Underground
			 source of drinking water" and "USDW" mean an aquifer or portion of an aquifer
			 that supplies any public water system or that contains a sufficient quantity of
			 groundwater to supply a public water system, and currently supplies drinking
			 water for human consumption, or that contains fewer than ten thousand
			 milligrams per liter total dissolved solids and is not an exempted
			 aquifer.
(58) "Vault" means a
			 structure normally made of concrete surrounding the wellhead, recessed into the
			 ground, all or portion that is placed below ground surfaces.
(59) "Waste" means and includes:
(a) Physical waste, such as the term is
			 understood generally in the oil and gas industry;
(b) Inefficient, excessive, or improper use,
			 or the unnecessary dissipation of reservoir energy;
(c) Inefficient storing of oil or
			 gas;
(d) Locating, drilling,
			 equipping, operating, or producing an oil or gas well in a manner that reduces
			 or tends to reduce the quantity of oil or gas ultimately recoverable under
			 prudent and proper operation from the pool into which it is drilled, or that
			 causes or tends to cause unnecessary or excessive surface loss or destruction
			 of oil or gas; and
(e) Other
			 underground or surface waste in the production, transportation, or storage of
			 oil, gas, or condensate, however caused.
(60) "Well" has the same meaning as in
			 section 1509.01 of the Revised
			 Code.
(61) "Well integrity" means
			 the quality or condition of a well being structurally sound with competent
			 pressure seals by the application of technical and operational solutions that
			 prevent uncontrolled fluid release or migration of annular fluids into
			 protected groundwater throughout the well life cycle.
(62) "Well site construction" means any
			 activity by an owner holding a permit, well owner or the owners authorized
			 representative to build the access roads, prepare the drill site location for
			 the drilling rig or tank battery and associated equipment and restoration of
			 the well site.