Section 15 AAC 55.900 - Definitions(a) Unless the context otherwise requires, as used in this chapter (1) "department" means the Department of Revenue;(2) "FASB" means the Financial Accounting Standards Board;(3) "FASB-13" means FASB's Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 13, "Accounting for Leases" (November 1976), as amended or interpreted by FASB's Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 17, "Accounting for Leases - Initial Direct Costs" (November 1977); FASB's Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 22, "Changes in the Provisions of Lease Agreements Resulting from Refundings of Tax-Exempt Debt" (June 1978); FASB's Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 23, "Inception of the Lease" (August 1978); FASB Interpretation No. 19, "Lessee Guarantee of the Residual Value of Leased Property" (October 1977); and FASB Interpretation No. 21, "Accounting for Leases in a Business Combination" (April 1978);(4) "LNG transportation facility" means one or more of the following: (A) the LNG liquefaction plant;(B) gathering lines to the liquefaction plant;(C) The LNG regasification plant;(D) loading and unloading facilities for LNG tankers;(5) "pipeline facility" means all facilities incident to the pipeline transportation of oil or gas downstream from the point of production;(7) "sales delivery point" means (A) for a producer's oil or gas sold in a bona fide, arm's-length sale to a third party, the point of delivery specified under the terms of the contract or agreement for that sale, except as otherwise provided by 15 AAC 55.151(g)(B) for a producer's oil to which (A) of this paragraph does not apply, the point where prevailing value is calculated under 15 AAC 55.171; and(C) for a producer's gas to which (A) of this paragraph does not apply, the point where prevailing value is calculated under 15 AAC 55.173;(8) "same regional market" means (A) with respect to an oil that a producer refines or ultimately disposes of in the state, the Alaskan market;(B) with respect to a producer's oil delivered to the United States West Coast (including Hawaii), the West Coast market or, if appropriate, the submarkets on the West Coast (i.e., Puget Sound, San Francisco Bay, the Long Beach and Los Angeles area, and Hawaii);(C) with respect to a producer's oil delivered to the United States Gulf Coast, the Gulf Coast market;(D) with respect to a producer's oil delivered to the United States East Coast, the East Coast market;(E) with respect to a producer's oil delivered to Puerto Rico or the United States Virgin Islands, the Puerto Rico and United States Virgin Islands market;(F) with respect to a producer's oil delivered to the United States Midcontinent region, the Midcontinent market;(G) with respect to a producer's gas marketed in the state, the Alaskan market or portion of it served by gas from the same field or area as the producer's gas;(H) with respect to a producer's gas delivered by pipeline and marketed in Canada or the Lower 48, the Canadian market or the Lower 48 market, as applicable, or, if appropriate, any submarkets in either Canada or the Lower 48;(I) with respect to a producer's oil marketed in a foreign country, the market in that foreign country;(J) with respect to a producer's gas delivered by an LNG transportation facility and marketed in a foreign country, the market in that foreign country;(K) with respect to a producer's gas delivered by LNG transportation facility and marketed in the United States outside of the state, the West Coast market for LNG or the Hawaii market for LNG, as appropriate;(9) "ANS" means oil produced in the Alaska North Slope area;(10) "crude" means oil or unrefined liquid petroleum consisting principally of oil;(11) "exchange" (A) means a disposition of oil by a producer to a third party in which all or a portion of the full consideration received is oil or other non-cash consideration; and(B) includes a related buy-sell agreement, tied sale, ratio exchange, or other arrangement where the producer's disposition of the oil to a third party is conditioned on the producer's purchase or receipt of oil or other non-cash consideration from that third party;(12) "GNP deflator" means the gross national product deflator, as calculated quarterly by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Economics and Statistics Administration, United States Department of Commerce;(13) "LNG" means liquified natural gas;(15) "quality bank differential" means the difference per barrel between the value of a specified ANS stream that is commingled with one or more other streams at a pipeline connection and the value of the commingled pipeline stream, sometimes known as the reference stream, immediately downstream from that pipeline connection, as that difference in value is calculated by the person administering the pipeline quality bank for that pipeline connection;(17) "TAPS" means Trans Alaska Pipeline System;(18) "consolidated business" means a corporation or group of corporations having more than 50 percent common ownership, direct or indirect, or a group of corporations in which common control exists, either direct or indirect, as evidenced by an arrangement, contract, or agreement;(19) "in service" means (A) engaged in transporting oil or gas produced in the state;(B) returning to the state from a voyage that transported oil or gas produced in the state; or(C) engaged in the ordinary and necessary operations incurred to transport oil or gas produced in the state;(20) "field topping plant" means a facility into which a portion of a stream of hydrocarbon liquids is diverted and run, where distillation techniques are used to separate and remove certain liquid hydrocarbon fractions from the diverted liquids, and from which the remaining fractions of those hydrocarbon liquids are returned and blended back into the stream of undiverted hydrocarbon liquids at a point upstream of the point that constitutes the point of production for the undiverted liquids;(21) "Mcf" means 1,000 cubic feet of gas;(22) "qualified capital expenditure" has the meaning given in AS 43.55.023(o);(23) "oil or gas development operations" means the physical operations conducted in the field to (A) drill and complete wells to produce oil or gas or to support oil or gas production, including installation of a drill pad or structure; or(B) install oil or gas production equipment or facilities;(24) "oil or gas exploration operations" means the physical operations conducted in the field to (A) drill and obtain subsurface information from an exploration well, including installation of a drill pad or structure; or(B) explore for oil or gas using geological or geophysical exploration techniques;(26) "oil or gas production operations" (A) means the physical operations conducted in the field to (i) lift oil or gas to the surface;(ii) gather, separate, treat, and store on the surface well fluids upstream of the point of production; in this sub-subparagraph, "treat" does not include performing gas treatment as defined in AS 43.55.900;(iii) perform gas processing upstream of the point of production;(iv) meter oil or gas upstream of the point of production; and(v) inject fluids in the reservoir from which the oil or gas is being produced, for reservoir pressure maintenance, repressuring, or enhanced recovery purposes;(B) does not include compression of gas for the purpose of gas treatment as defined in AS 43.55.900 or of transporting gas to a market;(27) "destination market" means a location or area where gas produced from leases or properties in the state, or any one of its components, is or can be physically bought, sold, transported, processed, or, in the case of LNG, regasified in the market;(28) "downstream gas plant" means a facility that extracts and recovers liquid hydrocarbons from gas by gas processing downstream of the point of production of the gas;(29) "downstream gas processing" means gas processing that occurs in a downstream gas plant;(30) "downstream gas processing cost allowance" means an allowance for the cost of downstream gas processing determined by the department under 15 AAC 55.173(o);(31) "FERC" means Federal Energy Regulatory Commission;(32) "first destination market with reasonable liquidity" means a destination market that the department has determined meets the criteria established in 15 AAC 55.173(n) ;(33) "gas plant products" (A) means separate marketable elements, compounds, or mixtures, whether in liquid, gaseous, or solid form, that can be derived by downstream gas processing of gas;(B) includes (vi) any NGL mix; in this sub-subparagraph, "NGL mix" means a mixture containing two or more NGLs;(viii) carbon dioxide or other non-hydrocarbon gases;(C) does not include residue gas;(34) "gas processing" has the meaning given in AS 43.55.900;(35) "gas treatment" has the meaning given in AS 43.55.900;(36) "gas treatment plant" means a facility that performs gas treatment;(37) "Lower 48" means the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia;(38) "MMBTU" means one million British thermal units;(39) "NGL" means a liquid hydrocarbon that is extracted and recovered from gas by downstream gas processing;(40) "producer" has the meaning given in AS 43.55.900;(41) "regasification cost allowance" means an allowance for the cost of regasification of LNG delivered outside the state determined by the department in 15 AAC 55.173(o);(42) "residue gas" means hydrocarbon gas that consists principally of methane after extraction of liquid hydrocarbons in a downstream gas plant;(43) "oil and gas lease" has the meaning given in AS 43.55.900;(44) "municipal entity" has the meaning given in AS 43.55.895(c);(45) "direct contractor" means a person, other than an employee of the applicant whose salaries and wages are considered a direct cost under AS 43.55.165, with whom an applicant under AS 43.55.028(g)(2) maintains a contractual relationship for work performed in connection with the applicant's major expenditures allowed for the credit certificates claimed for the cash purchase under AS 43 .55.028.(46) "workforce" means employees who are resident workers as well as employees who do not meet the definition of resident worker.(b) Unless the context otherwise requires, as used in this chapter and in AS 43.55, (1) "area" means a geographic region or geologic province, including the Cook Inlet basin or the North Slope of the state;(2) "field" means that part of an area underlain by one or more overlapping, contiguous, or superimposed pools, including Prudhoe Bay field or Middle Ground Shoal field in the state;(8) "abandoned" has the meaning given in 20 AAC 25.990;(9) "bottom hole" has the meaning given the term "bottom-hole location" in 20 AAC 25.990;(10) "completion date" means, for (A) an exploration well, the earliest of the dates drilling ceased on the well site, the well was abandoned, or the well was suspended; and(B) a preexisting well, the date the well was completed and equipped for producing fluids;(11) "exploration unit" means a unit that (A) contains state land and is under a plan of exploration; or(B) does not contain state land and from which commercial production has not commenced;(12) "exploration well" means a well drilled to discover or to delineate a pool or to gain structural or stratigraphic information to aid in exploring for oil and gas;(13) "explorer" has the meaning given in AS 43.55.900; "explorer" does not include a drilling contractor, operator, or other person that does not hold an interest in the exploration well or seismic or geophysical work;(14) "plan of exploration" means a plan submitted in accordance with 11 AAC 83.341;(15) "plan of development" means a plan submitted in accordance with 11 AAC 83.343;(16) "production unit" means a unit that (A) contains state land and is under a plan of development; or(B) does not contain state land and from which commercial production has commenced;(17) "new oil or gas reserves" means previously undiscovered oil or gas reserves;(18) "reserves" means unproduced but recoverable oil or gas in place in a formation;(19) "suspended" has the meaning given in 20 AAC 25.990;(20) repealed 10/21/2009;(21) "commercial production" means production for purposes of sale or other beneficial use of oil or gas other than use associated with the exploration and development of the field in which the lease or property lies, except if the sale or beneficial use is incidental to the testing of an unproved well or unproved completion interval;(22) "taxable under AS 43.55.011(e)," when used in reference to oil or gas or both, means produced from a lease or property in the state but excluding any oil and gas in which the federal government or the state has an ownership interest or the ownership or right to which constitutes a landowner's royalty interest; this paragraph does not apply to AS 43.55.895(b);(24) "taxable under AS 43.55.011(i)," when used in reference to oil or gas or both, means produced from a lease or property in the state the ownership or right to which constitutes a landowner's royalty interest, but excluding oil and gas the ownership or right to which is exempt from taxation;(25) "other land" means, with respect to costs of exploration, land the right to explore for oil or gas deposits within which, or the right to drill a stratigraphic test well on which, has been granted by license or permit by the property owner to the producer or explorer that incurs, or on behalf of whom is incurred, the costs of that exploration;(26) "affiliated" means, with respect to two or more persons, occupying a relationship in which one person controls another, is controlled by another, or is under common control with another, and includes the relationship between a person and a division of the person that operates as a functional unit;(27) "control" has the meaning given in AS 43.90.900.(28) "sells to another party," when used in reference to oil or gas of a producer that is a municipal entity under AS 43.55.895, means sells to a person other than the producer.(29) except in AS 43.55.160(a) and (h) subject to AS 43.55.165(l), "lease expenditure" does not include a carried-forward annual loss as defined in AS 43.55.165(s)(1).(c) As used in AS 43.55, "agreement for unitization or pooling" means an agreement under which two or more persons owning working interests in a mineral interest in oil or gas or both agree to have the interests operated on a unified basis and further agree to share in production on a stipulated percentage or fractional basis regardless of the interest or interests from which the oil or gas is actually recovered and produced.(d) As used in the definition of "producer" in AS 43.55.900, "owner" includes (4) a limited liability company;(6) any entity that is affiliated with the owner.Eff. 1/1/95, Register 132; am 1/1/2000, Register 152; am 1/1/2002, Register 160; am 1/1/2003, Register 164; am 1/1/2004, Register 168; am 5/3/2007, Register 182; am 10/21/2009, Register 192; am 2/27/2010, Register 193; am 4/30/2010, Register 194; am 12/4/2010, Register 196; am 9/14/2012, Register 203; am 12/25/2013, Register 208, January 2014; am 3/1/2017, Register 221, April 2017; am 12/6/2018, Register 228, January 2019 ; am 9/20/2020,Register 235, October 2020 ; am 1/1/2022,Register 240, January 2022 Authority:AS 43.05.080
AS 43.55.011
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AS 43.55.900