The following words and terms, when used in this chapter, shall have the following meanings, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.

(1) Assignment--A transfer of an interest in an oil and gas lease.

(2) Commissioner--Commissioner of the General Land Office.

(3) Counterparts--Instruments executed by different parties and recorded as separate instruments or fully executed instruments recorded in different counties.

(4) Exploration--Geological, geophysical, geochemical, and other surveys and investigations conducted for the purposes of discovering and locating oil and gas.

(5) Forfeiture--The cancellation or dissolution of an oil and gas lease by the commissioner when lessee fails to satisfy or breaches certain lease provisions, statutes or rules.

(6) Free royalty lands--Lands sold by the state in which the state reserved a free royalty interest but did not retain any leasing or executive rights. (See, e.g., Texas Natural Resources Code, §51.054).

(7) GLO--General Land Office.

(8) GLO Lease Number--Synonymous with mineral file number.

(9) Lessee--The initial holder of the leasehold interest or a successor, assignee, devisee, heir, or any other person who acquires that interest or any portion thereof.

(10) Mineral file number--The identification assigned by the GLO to the GLO jacket in which lease records are kept.

(11) Oil and gas--Crude oil, crude petroleum oil, crude petroleum, natural gas, and associated hydrocarbons, including, without limitation, casinghead gas, condensate, distillate, and liquids extracted from natural gas.

(12) Operator--A person that explores for, develops, or produces oil and gas from a particular lease, field, or area; also any employee, agent, servant, contractor, subcontractor, trustee, or receiver of an operator, or any other agent in control of any or all of the leasehold interest.

(13) Person--Any individual, partnership, corporation, organization, government or governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, association, or other legal entity.

(14) Premises--Any state property subject to an oil and gas lease.

(15) PSF--Permanent School Fund.

(16) Release--A statement by a lessee indicating that all or part of an oil and gas lease has terminated or expired or has been surrendered or forfeited.

(17) Relinquishment Act lands--Any public free school or asylum lands, whether surveyed or unsurveyed, sold with a mineral classification or reservation between September 1, 1895, and May 29, 1931, encompassing any other lands, including vacancy lands, patented with all minerals reserved to the state and expressly made subject to the leasing terms and procedures governing Relinquishment Act lands.

(18) Relinquishment Act leases--Leases issued under Texas Natural Resources Code, Chapter 52, Subchapter F, and §9.22(2) and (3) of this title, (relating to Leasing Procedures).

(19) RRC--Texas Railroad Commission.

(20) SLB--School Land Board.

(21) Submerged lands--Islands, salt water lakes, bays, inlets, marshes, and reefs within tidewater limits and that portion of the Gulf of Mexico within the jurisdiction of the State of Texas.

(22) Surface owner--Owner of the soil under the Relinquishment Act that acts as the state's agent in leasing Relinquishment Act property.

(23) TDCJ--Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

(24) Termination--The automatic, nondiscretionary expiration of all or part of an oil and gas lease under its own terms.

(25) TPWD--Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

Source Note: The provisions of this §9.1 adopted to be effective January 7, 1999, 24 TexReg 146