Texas Administrative Code › Title 31 - NATURAL RESOURCES AND CONSERVATION › Part 1 - GENERAL LAND OFFICE › Chapter 9 - EXPLORATION AND LEASING OF STATE OIL AND GAS › Subchapter A - GENERAL PROVISIONS › Section 9.1 - Definitions

Current through Reg. 49, No. 28; July 12, 2024
The following words and terms, when used in this chapter,
					 shall have the following meanings, unless the context clearly indicates
					 otherwise.
(1) Assignment--A transfer
				  of an interest in an oil and gas lease.
(2) Commissioner--Commissioner of the General
				  Land Office.
(3)
				  Counterparts--Instruments executed by different parties and recorded as
				  separate instruments or fully executed instruments recorded in different
				  counties.
(4)
				  Exploration--Geological, geophysical, geochemical, and other surveys and
				  investigations conducted for the purposes of discovering and locating oil and
				  gas.
(5) Forfeiture--The
				  cancellation or dissolution of an oil and gas lease by the commissioner when
				  lessee fails to satisfy or breaches certain lease provisions, statutes or
				  rules.
(6) Free royalty
				  lands--Lands sold by the state in which the state reserved a free royalty
				  interest but did not retain any leasing or executive rights. (See, e.g., Texas
				  Natural Resources Code, §
										51.054).
(7) GLO--General Land Office.
(8) GLO Lease Number--Synonymous with mineral
				  file number.
(9) Lessee--The
				  initial holder of the leasehold interest or a successor, assignee, devisee,
				  heir, or any other person who acquires that interest or any portion
				  thereof.
(10) Mineral file
				  number--The identification assigned by the GLO to the GLO jacket in which lease
				  records are kept.
(11) Oil and
				  gas--Crude oil, crude petroleum oil, crude petroleum, natural gas, and
				  associated hydrocarbons, including, without limitation, casinghead gas,
				  condensate, distillate, and liquids extracted from natural gas.
(12) Operator--A person that explores for,
				  develops, or produces oil and gas from a particular lease, field, or area; also
				  any employee, agent, servant, contractor, subcontractor, trustee, or receiver
				  of an operator, or any other agent in control of any or all of the leasehold
				  interest.
(13) Person--Any
				  individual, partnership, corporation, organization, government or governmental
				  subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, association, or other
				  legal entity.
(14) Premises--Any
				  state property subject to an oil and gas lease.
(15) PSF--Permanent School Fund.
(16) Release--A statement by a lessee
				  indicating that all or part of an oil and gas lease has terminated or expired
				  or has been surrendered or forfeited.
(17) Relinquishment Act lands--Any public
				  free school or asylum lands, whether surveyed or unsurveyed, sold with a
				  mineral classification or reservation between September 1, 1895, and May 29,
				  1931, encompassing any other lands, including vacancy lands, patented with all
				  minerals reserved to the state and expressly made subject to the leasing terms
				  and procedures governing Relinquishment Act lands.
(18) Relinquishment Act leases--Leases issued
				  under Texas Natural Resources Code, Chapter 52, Subchapter F, and §
										9.22(2) and
				  (3) of this title, (relating to Leasing
				  Procedures).
(19) RRC--Texas
				  Railroad Commission.
(20)
				  SLB--School Land Board.
(21)
				  Submerged lands--Islands, salt water lakes, bays, inlets, marshes, and reefs
				  within tidewater limits and that portion of the Gulf of Mexico within the
				  jurisdiction of the State of Texas.
(22) Surface owner--Owner of the soil under
				  the Relinquishment Act that acts as the state's agent in leasing Relinquishment
				  Act property.
(23) TDCJ--Texas
				  Department of Criminal Justice.
(24) Termination--The automatic,
				  nondiscretionary expiration of all or part of an oil and gas lease under its
				  own terms.
(25) TPWD--Texas Parks
				  and Wildlife Department