West Virginia Code 22C-8-12 – Effect of order establishing drilling unit or pooling of interests; recordation
(a) An order issued by the board establishing a drilling unit and ordering the pooling of interests therein shall not entitle the gas operator designated in such order to drill a well on such drilling unit until such gas operator shall have received a drilling permit in accordance with the provisions applicable to alternative drilling locations set out in section seventeen, article six, chapter twenty-two of this code. All orders issued by the board establishing a drilling unit shall be filed with the director and shall also direct the director to issue a drilling permit for the drilling location agreed to by all of the owners of the coal seams underlying such drilling location.
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 22C-8-12
- Board: means the Shallow Gas Well Review Board provided for in section four of this article. See West Virginia Code 22C-8-2
- Commission: means the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission provided for in section four, article nine of this chapter. See West Virginia Code 22C-8-2
- Director: means the Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection as established in article one, chapter . See West Virginia Code 22C-8-2
- Drilling unit: means the acreage on which the board decides one well may be drilled under section ten of this article. See West Virginia Code 22C-8-2
- Gas: means all natural gas and all other fluid hydrocarbons not defined as oil in subdivision (15) of this section. See West Virginia Code 22C-8-2
- Gas operator: means any person who owns or has the right to develop, operate and produce gas from a pool and to appropriate the gas produced therefrom either for that person or for that person and others. See West Virginia Code 22C-8-2
- 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 reservoir. See West Virginia Code 22C-8-2
- Well: means any shaft or hole sunk, drilled, bored or dug into the earth or into underground strata for the extraction, injection or placement of any liquid or gas, or any shaft or hole sunk or used in conjunction with the extraction, injection or placement. See West Virginia Code 22C-8-2
(b) A certified copy of any order of the board establishing a drilling unit or a pooling of interests shall be mailed by the board to the clerk of the county commission of each county wherein all or any portion of the drilling unit is located, for recordation in the record book of such county in which oil and gas leases are normally recorded. Such recordation from the time noted thereon by such clerk shall be notice of the order to all persons.