West Virginia Code 22-6-18 – Protective devices — When well penetrates workable coal bed; when gas is found beneath or between workable coal beds
(a) When a well penetrates one or more workable coal beds, the well operator shall run and cement a string of casing in the hole through the workable coal bed or beds in such a manner as will exclude all oil, gas or gas pressure from the coal bed or beds, except such oil, gas or gas pressure as may be found in such coal bed or beds. Such string of casing shall be run to a point at least thirty feet below the lowest workable coal bed which the well penetrates and shall be circulated and cemented from such point to the surface in such a manner as provided for in reasonable rules promulgated by the director in accordance with the provisions of chapter twenty-nine-a. After any such string of casing has been so run and cemented to the surface, drilling may proceed to the permitted depth.
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 22-6-18
- Casing: means a string or strings of pipe commonly placed in wells drilled for natural gas or petroleum or both. See West Virginia Code 22-6-1
- Cement: means hydraulic cement properly mixed with water. See West Virginia Code 22-6-1
- Director: means the Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection as established in article one of this chapter or other person to whom the secretary has delegated authority or duties pursuant to sections six or eight, article one of this chapter. See West Virginia Code 22-6-1
- Gas: means all natural gas and all other fluid hydrocarbons not defined as oil in this section. See West Virginia Code 22-6-1
- Oil: means natural crude oil or petroleum and other hydrocarbons, regardless of gravity, which are produced at the well in liquid form by ordinary production methods and which are not the result of condensation of gas after it leaves the underground reservoirs. See West Virginia Code 22-6-1
- operator: means any person or persons, firm, partnership, partnership association or corporation that proposes to or does locate, drill, operate or abandon any well as herein defined. See West Virginia Code 22-6-1
- Well: means any shaft or hole sunk, drilled, bored or dug into the earth or into underground strata for the extraction or injection or placement of any liquid or gas, or any shaft or hole sunk or used in conjunction with such extraction or injection or placement. See West Virginia Code 22-6-1
(b) In the event that gas is found beneath a workable coal bed before the hole has been reduced from the size it had at the coal bed, a packer shall be placed below the coal bed, and above the gas horizon, and the gas by this means diverted to the inside of the adjacent string of casing through perforations made in such casing, and through it passed to the surface without contact with the coal bed. Should gas be found between two workable beds of coal, in a hole, of the same diameter from bed to bed, two packers shall be placed, with perforations in the casing between them, permitting the gas to pass to the surface inside the adjacent casing. In either of the cases here specified, the strings of casing shall extend from their seats to the top of the well.