South Dakota Codified Laws 45-9-2. Definition of terms
Terms used in this chapter mean:
(1) “Board,” the Board of Minerals and Environment;
Terms Used In South Dakota Codified Laws 45-9-2
- Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
- Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. Source: U.S. Courts
- Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
- Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
- Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
- Person: includes natural persons, partnerships, associations, cooperative corporations, limited liability companies, and corporations. See South Dakota Codified Laws 2-14-2
- Property: includes property, real and personal. See South Dakota Codified Laws 2-14-2
- Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
- Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
(2) “Condensate,” liquid hydrocarbons that were originally in the gaseous phase in the reservoir;
(3) “Developed area,” a spacing unit on which a well has been completed that is capable of producing oil or gas, or the acreage that is otherwise attributed to a well by the board for allowable purposes;
(4) “Field,” the general area underlaid by one or more pools;
(5) “Gas,” all natural gas and all other fluid hydrocarbons not defined in subdivision (7) as oil, including condensate because it originally was in the gaseous phase in the reservoir;
(6) “Just and equitable share of the production,” as to each person, that part of the authorized production from the pool that is substantially in the proportion that the amount of recoverable oil or gas or both in the developed area of the person’s tract or tracts in the pool bears to the recoverable oil or gas or both in the total of the developed areas of the pool;
(7) “Oil,” crude petroleum oil and other hydrocarbons regardless of gravity that are produced at the wellhead in liquid form, but not liquid hydrocarbons that were originally in a gaseous phase in the reservoir;
(8) “Owner,” the person who has the right to drill into and produce from a pool and to appropriate the oil or gas the person produces from the pool;
(9) “Person,” any natural person, corporation, limited liability company, association, partnership, receiver, trustee, personal representative, guardian, fiduciary, or other representative of any kind, including any department, agency, or instrumentality of the state or of any governmental subdivision of the state;
(10) “Pool,” an underground reservoir containing a common accumulation of oil or gas or both; each zone of a structure that is completely separated from any other zone in the same structure is a pool;
(11) “Premises,” the surface property of the landowner or lessee, both real and personal, and the ingress to and the egress from the real property;
(12) “Producer,” the owner of a well or wells capable of producing oil or gas or both;
(13) “Product,” any commodity made from oil or gas, including refined crude oil, crude tops, topped crude, processed crude, processed crude petroleum, residue from crude petroleum, cracking stock, uncracked fuel oil, fuel oil, treated crude oil, gas oil, residuum, casinghead gasoline, natural gas, gasoline, kerosene, benzene, wash oil, waste oil, blended gasoline, lubricating oil, blends or mixtures of oil with one or more liquid products or by-products derived from oil or gas, and blends or mixtures of two or more liquid products or by-products derived from oil or gas;
(14) “Protect correlative rights,” the action or regulation by the board affords a reasonable opportunity to each person so entitled to recover or receive the oil or gas in the person’s tract or tracts or the equivalent, without being required to drill unnecessary wells or to incur other unnecessary expense to recover or receive such oil or gas or its equivalent;
(15) “Waste,”:
(a) Physical waste, as that term is generally understood in the oil and gas industry;
(b) The inefficient, excessive, or improper use of, or the unnecessary dissipation of reservoir energy;
(c) The inefficient storing of oil or gas;
(d) The drilling of unnecessary wells;
(e) The locating, spacing, drilling, equipping, operating, or producing of any oil or gas well or wells in a manner that causes, or tends to cause, reduction in the quantity of oil or gas ultimately recoverable from a pool under prudent and proper operations, or that causes or tends to cause unnecessary or excessive surface loss or destruction of oil or gas;
(f) The underground or above ground waste in the production or storage of oil or gas, however caused, and whether or not defined in other subdivisions of this section.
Source: SL 1943, ch 153, § 4; SL 1951, ch 221, § 1; SDC Supp 1960, § 42.0704; SL 1961, ch 211, § 1; SL 1983, ch 13, § 25; SL 1994, ch 351, § 110; SL 1995, ch 167, § 188.