Section 70-2-33 - Definitions. - New Mexico Statutes

70-2-33. Definitions.

As used in the Oil and Gas Act [70-2-1 NMSA 1978]:

A.     "person" means:

(1)     any individual, estate, trust, receiver, cooperative association, club, corporation, company, firm, partnership, joint venture, syndicate or other entity; or

(2)     the United States or any agency or instrumentality thereof or the state or any political subdivision thereof;

B.     "pool" means an underground reservoir containing a common accumulation of crude petroleum oil or natural gas or both.  Each zone of a general structure, which zone is completely separate from any other zone in the structure, is covered by the word pool as used in the Oil and Gas Act.  Pool is synonymous with "common source of supply" and with "common reservoir";

C.     "field" means the general area that is underlaid or appears to be underlaid by at least one pool and also includes the underground reservoir or reservoirs containing the crude petroleum oil or natural gas or both.  The words field and pool mean the same thing when only one underground reservoir is involved; however, field, unlike pool, may relate to two or more pools;

D.     "product" means any commodity or thing made or manufactured from crude petroleum oil or natural gas and all derivatives of crude petroleum oil or natural gas, including refined crude oil, crude tops, topped crude, processed crude petroleum, residue from crude petroleum, cracking stock, uncracked fuel oil, treated crude oil, fuel oil, residuum, gas oil, naphtha, distillate, gasoline, kerosene, benzine, wash oil, waste oil, lubricating oil and blends or mixtures of crude petroleum oil or natural gas or any derivative thereof;

E.     "owner" means the person who has the right to drill into and to produce from any pool and to appropriate the production either for himself or for himself and another;

F.     "producer" means the owner of a well capable of producing oil or natural gas or both in paying quantities;

G.     "gas transportation facility" means a pipeline in operation serving gas wells for the transportation of natural gas or some other device or equipment in like operation whereby natural gas produced from gas wells connected therewith can be transported or used for consumption;

H.     "correlative rights" means the opportunity afforded, so far as it is practicable to do so, to the owner of each property in a pool to produce without waste his just and equitable share of the oil or gas or both in the pool, being an amount, so far as can be practicably determined and so far as can be practicably obtained without waste, substantially in the proportion that the quantity of recoverable oil or gas or both under the property bears to the total recoverable oil or gas or both in the pool and, for such purpose, to use his just and equitable share of the reservoir energy;

I.     "potash" means the naturally occurring bedded deposits of the salts of the element potassium;

J.     "casinghead gas" means any gas or vapor or both indigenous to an oil stratum and produced from such stratum with oil, including any residue gas remaining after the processing of casinghead gas to remove its liquid components; and

K.     "produced water" means water that is an incidental byproduct from drilling for or the production of oil and gas.