§ 52-86.1. Definitions.

For the purposes of this act:

1.  "Commission" means the Corporation Commission;

2.  “Person” includes any individual, copartnership, corporation, common law or statutory trust or association of whatever character;

3.  “Common source of supply" comprises and includes that area which is underlaid or which, from geological or other scientific data, or from drilling operations, or other evidence, appears to be underlaid, by a common accumulation of oil or gas or both.  If any such area is underlaid, or appears from geological or other scientific data, or from drilling operations, or other evidence, to be underlaid by more than one common accumulation of oil or gas or both, separated from each other by a strata of earth and not connected with each other, then such area, as to each said common accumulation of oil or gas or both, shall be deemed a separate common source of supply;

4.  “Owner” means a person who has the right to drill into and to produce from any common source of supply and to appropriate the production, either for that person or for that person and others;

5.  “Oil” means crude petroleum oil, and any other hydrocarbons, regardless of gravity, which are produced at the well in liquid form by ordinary production methods;

6.  “Gas” means all natural gas, including casinghead gas, and all other hydrocarbons not defined as oil in paragraph 5 of this section;

7.  “Producer” means any person who, along or in association with another person or persons, shall have the right to drill into and produce from, or who has any interest in production from, any common source of supply in this state;

8.  “Operator” means any producer of oil or gas who has drilled a well or wells into a common source of supply and is engaged in operating the well or wells for the purpose of producing oil or gas therefrom;

9.  “Taker” includes any person, who, acting alone, or jointly with any person or persons, is directly or indirectly purchasing or transporting by any means whatsoever or otherwise removing oil or gas from any common source of supply in this state; and

10.  “Hearing” means any proceeding before an Administrative Law Judge, Appellate Referee or the Corporation Commission en banc, after notice and opportunity to be heard, by which the Commission may exercise its authority under Chapter 3 of this title and as set forth in the Rules of Practice of the Commission.  Any evidence as defined, authorized, and permitted by the Oklahoma Constitution, the laws of the State of Oklahoma, and rules of the Commission in support of an application for Commission action or relief shall be received as evidence.

Added by Laws 1947, p. 326, § 1, emerg. eff. April 29, 1947. Amended by Laws 2006, c. 190, § 1, emerg. eff. May 26, 2006.