(a) The supervisor, upon the supervisor’s own motion, may, or shall, upon the application of any city, county, or city and county, any part of which is in a subsidence area, or any contractor or lessee for the production of oil or gas therefor, or any person having a working interest therein, who has submitted therewith an engineering report and plan for fieldwide repressuring operations in the pool or pools in a field in order to arrest or ameliorate subsidence therein, prepared by a petroleum engineer licensed by the state, hold a public hearing. The public hearing shall, at a minimum, consider the need for repressuring operations in all of the pool or pools in order to arrest or ameliorate subsidence. The supervisor may order applications relating to the same field to be consolidated for the public hearing thereon.

(b) Before any application shall be considered, each applicant shall pay to the supervisor for deposit in the General Fund a sum of money estimated by the supervisor to be equivalent to the amount of costs necessary to publish and mail notices, to employ stenographic reporters, to prepare a daily transcript of such hearing for use by the supervisor, to pay any rental that may be necessary to provide quarters for the hearing and to reimburse the Department of Conservation for any charges imposed upon it for the services of a hearing officer or members of the Attorney General’s staff in conjunction with the hearing. If more than one application is filed, the costs shall be equally charged and assessed to and paid by the respective applicants. The costs, when finally determined, if in excess of the amount theretofore deposited shall be paid equally by the applicant or applicants. Any money remaining on deposit after final determination and payment of costs shall be refunded to the applicant or applicants equally. If, after a public hearing and from the evidence adduced therefrom, and from such engineering studies as the supervisor may have ordered made and which have been presented and considered at the hearing, the supervisor finds that repressuring operations of the pool or pools will tend to arrest or ameliorate subsidence, the supervisor shall by order adopt a fieldwide repressuring plan and specifications of the work to be done thereunder, if, in the judgment of the supervisor, the fieldwide plan and specifications are necessary, and will not substantially reduce the maximum economic quantity of oil or gas ultimately recoverable from the pool or pools under prudent and proper operations.

(c) Any fieldwide repressuring plan and general specifications shall be based upon a competent engineering study of all the pools in the field and shall provide for repressuring operations designed to most effectively arrest or ameliorate subsidence with respect to those land areas overlying or immediately adjacent to a producing pool or pools. The plan and specifications may provide that they may be carried out by one or more units made up of the pool, groups of pools, or portions thereof, or by individual persons, or by cooperative agreements between two or more persons or by any combinations of the foregoing which in the judgment of the supervisor shall be feasible. The study may be reviewed from time to time by the supervisor, and if it be determined, from an analysis of the collected data, that consideration should be given to the alteration or modification of the plan and specifications, the supervisor shall order the holding of the requisite hearing for the purpose of determining whether the change should be incorporated into the plan and specifications by an amended order. The supervisor may amend a fieldwide repressuring plan and general specifications of the work to be done in the same manner as herein provided for the initial adoption of the plan and specifications.

(Amended by Stats. 1992, Ch. 999, Sec. 16. Effective January 1, 1993.)