Ch. 777

LAWS OF MARYLAND

BY adding to

Article - Natural Resources

Section 6-104.1 and 6-104.2

Annotated Code of Maryland

(1983 Replacement Volume and 1987 Supplement)

SECTION 1. BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF
MARYLAND, That the Laws of Maryland read as follows:

Article - Natural Resources

6-101.

It is in the public interest to foster, encourage, and
promote the development, production, and utilization of natural
resources of oil and gas in the State, to prevent waste, to
protect the environmental resources of the State from adverse
effects associated with drilling, production, and underground
storage of gas and oil, and to protect fully the rights of every
owner to the end that landowners, royalty owners, producers of
oil and gas, and the general public realize and enjoy the
greatest possible good from these vital natural resources.

6-102.

(a)  In this [subtitle,] SUBTITLE the following words have
the meanings indicated.

(b)  "County" includes Baltimore City unless otherwise
indicated.

(c)  "Department" means Department of Natural Resources.

(d)  "Field" means the general area underlaid by one or more
pools.

(e)  "Gas" means all natural gas and other fluid
hydrocarbons, not defined as oil, which are produced from a
natural reservoir.

(f)  "Oil" means crude petroleum oil and other hydrocarbons,
regardless of gravity, which are produced at the wellhead in
liquid form, except liquid hydrocarbons known as distillate or
condensate recovered or extracted from gas.

(g)  "Owner" means the person who has the right to drill
into and produce from a pool, or to store in a pool, and
appropriate the oil or gas [he] THE PERSON produces or stores
either for [himself] THE PERSON or others.

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