§ 60-1-101 — Chapter definitions

As used in this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires: (1) "Board" means the Tennessee board of water quality, oil and gas created by § 69-3-104 ; (2) "Casinghead gas" means any gas or vapor, or both, indigenous to an oil stratum and produced from such stratum with oil. It shall be treated as gas, if sold, for the purpose of paying privilege tax; (3) "Condensate" means liquid hydrocarbons that were in the gaseous phase in the reservoir in initial reservoir conditions. It shall be treated as oil for the purpose of paying privilege tax; (4) "Field" means the general area which is underlain or appears to be underlain by at least one pool and including the pool or pools beneath the area; (5) "Gas" means all natural gas and all other fluid hydrocarbons not defined as oil, including condensate because it originally was in a gaseous phase in the reservoir; (6) "Oil" means crude petroleum that was originally in an oil phase in the reservoir; (7) "Operator" means any person who owns or is directly responsible for a business involved in some phase of the production, manufacture, refining or distribution of petroleum oil or natural gas; (8) "Owner" means the person who has the right to drill into and to produce from any pool, and to appropriate the production for such person or others; (9) "Person" means any natural person, corporation, association, partnership, receiver, trustee, guardian, executor, administrator, fiduciary or representative of any kind; (10) "Pool" means an underground reservoir containing a common accumulation of crude petroleum oil or natural gas or both. Each zone of the general structure which is completely separated from any other zone in the structure is covered by the term "pool" as used in this chapter; (11) "Producer" means the owner of a well or wells capable of producing oil or gas, or both, in paying quantities; (12) "Supervisor" means the commissioner of environment and conservation or the commissioner's designee; and (13) "Waste," in addition to its ordinary meaning, means "physical waste" as that term is generally understood in the oil and gas industry. It includes: (A) Underground waste and inefficient, excessive, or improper use or dissipation of reservoir energy, including gas energy and water drive, of any pool; and the locating, spacing, drilling, equipping, operating, or producing of any oil well or gas ultimately recoverable from any pool; and (B) Surface waste and the inefficient storing of oil and the locating, spacing, drilling, equipping, operating or producing of oil wells or gas wells in a manner causing or tending to cause unnecessary or excessive surface loss or destruction of oil or gas.

Legislative History

Amended by 2021 Tenn. Acts, ch. 548, s 1, eff. 5/26/2021. Acts 1943, ch. 64, § 3; C. Supp. 1950, § 5240.3; Acts 1971, ch. 280, § 1; 1978, ch. 791, § 5; T.C.A. (orig. ed.), § 60-101; Acts 1992, ch. 693, §21; 2012 , ch. 986, § 29.