New South Wales Consolidated Acts

PETROLEUM (ONSHORE) ACT 1991 - SECT 3

3 Definitions

(1) In this Act:
"appropriate fee" means a fee determined under section 138A.
"appropriate lodgment fee" means a lodgment fee determined under section 138A (a).
"appropriate petroleum title fee" means a petroleum title fee determined under section 138A (b).
"block" means a graticular section referred to in section 4.
"Commonwealth Native Title Act" means the Native Title Act 1993 of the Commonwealth.
"Department" means the Department of Mineral Resources.
"Director-General" means the Director-General of the Department.
"drilling" means the perforation of the earth’s surface crust by mechanical means, whether the hole caused by the perforation is vertical, inclined or horizontal, and includes all operations for preventing collapse of the sides of any such hole or for preventing it from being filled with extraneous materials including water.
"geological survey" includes the examination of areas in the field, the collection of the necessary specimens of rocks and other materials, investigations in the laboratory, the preparation of geological maps and geological sections, and all other operations essential for the determination of the geological nature, formation and structure of any such area.
"geophysical survey" means the examination of an area with the aid of instruments with the object of determining some or all of the physical constituents of geological formations on or below the surface of the earth in such area.
"land" includes land covered by water.
"landholder" means, in relation to any land:

(a) the owner of an estate in fee simple in the land, or

(b) a native title holder of the land, or

(c) the holder of a lease or licence granted under the Crown Lands Act 1989 over the land, or

(d) the holder of a tenure referred to in Part 1 or 2 of Schedule 1 to the Crown Lands (Continued Tenures) Act 1989 in the land, or

(e) the holder of a permissive occupancy granted over the land, or

(f) the holder of a lease granted under the Western Lands Act 1901 over the land, or

(g) a person identified in any register or record kept by the Registrar-General as a person having an interest in the land, or

(h) a person of a class prescribed by or determined in accordance with the regulations to be landholders for the purposes of this definition,

but does not include a person of a class prescribed as outside the scope of this definition.
"onshore area" means any area of land in New South Wales that is not included in the territorial sea within the meaning of the Petroleum (Offshore) Act 1982 .
"petroleum" means:

(a) any naturally occurring hydrocarbon, whether in a gaseous, liquid or solid state, or

(b) any naturally occurring mixture of hydrocarbons, whether in a gaseous, liquid or solid state, or

(c) any naturally occurring mixture of one or more hydrocarbons, whether in a gaseous, liquid or solid state, and one or more of the following, that is to say, hydrogen sulphide, nitrogen, helium, carbon dioxide and water,

and includes any substance referred to in paragraph (a), (b) or (c) that has been returned to a natural reservoir, but does not include coal or oil shale or any substance prescribed to be a mineral for the purposes of the Mining Act 1992 .
"petroleum deposit" means any naturally occurring accumulation of petroleum on or below the surface of the earth.
"petroleum title" means an exploration licence, assessment lease, production lease or special prospecting authority in force under this Act.
"prospect" means to carry out works on, or to remove samples from, land for the purpose of testing the quality and quantity of petroleum in the land and the potential to recover petroleum from the land, but does not include any activity declared by the regulations not to constitute prospecting.
"well" means a hole made by drilling in connection with exploration for petroleum or operations for the recovery of petroleum, but does not include a seismic shot hole.

(2) A reference in this Act to land comprised in a petroleum title or in any instrument includes, where the title or instrument is a lease, a reference to land demised by the lease.