30 C.F.R. §§ 203.45–203.47

If you drill a certified unsuccessful well and you satisfy the administrative requirements of § 203.47, subject to the price conditions in § 203.48, your lease earns an RSS shown in the following table. The RSS is shown in billions of cubic feet of gas equivalent (BCFE) or in thousands of cubic feet of gas equivalent (MCFE) and is applicable to oil and gas production as prescribed in § 203.46.

This paragraph applies to oil and gas volumes you report on the OGOR-A for your lease under 30 CFR 1210.102.

The conversion from oil to gas for using the royalty suspension supplement is specified in § 203.73.

Each lease is eligible for up to two royalty suspension supplements. Therefore, the total royalty suspension supplement for a lease cannot exceed 10 BCFE.

If the same wellbore that earns an RSS as a certified unsuccessful well later produces from a perforated interval the top of which is 15,000 feet TVD or deeper and becomes a qualified well, it will be subject to the following conditions:

If the same wellbore that earned a royalty suspension supplement later has a sidetrack drilled from that wellbore, you are not required to subtract any royalty suspension supplement earned by that wellbore from the royalty suspension volume that may be earned by the sidetrack.

You owe minimum royalties or rentals in accordance with your lease terms notwithstanding any royalty suspension supplements under this section.

Subject to the requirements of §§ 203.40, 203.43, 203.45, 203.47, and 203.48 you must apply an RSS in § 203.45 to the earliest oil and gas production:

If you have a royalty suspension volume for the lease under § 203.41, you must use the royalty suspension volumes for gas produced from qualified wells on the lease before using royalty suspension supplements for gas produced from qualified wells.

If you have no current production on which to apply the RSS allowed under § 203.45, your RSS applies to the earliest subsequent production of gas and oil from, or allocated under a BSEE-approved unit agreement to, your lease.

You may not apply the RSS allowed under § 203.45 to production from any other lease, except for production allocated to your lease from a BSEE-approved unit agreement. If your certified unsuccessful well is on a lease subject to a BSEE-approved unit agreement, the lessees of other leases in the unit may not apply any portion of the RSS for your lease to production from the other leases in the unit.

You must begin or resume paying royalties when cumulative gas and oil production from, or allocated under a BSEE-approved unit agreement to, your lease (excluding any gas produced from qualified wells subject to a royalty suspension volume allowed under § 203.41) reaches the applicable royalty suspension supplement. For the month in which the cumulative production reaches this royalty suspension supplement, you owe royalties on the portion of gas or oil production that exceeds the amount of the royalty suspension supplement remaining at the beginning of that month.

Before you start drilling a well on your lease targeted to a reservoir at least 18,000 feet TVD SS, you must notify, in writing, the BSEE Regional Supervisor for Production and Development of your intent to begin drilling operations and the depth of the target.

After drilling the well, you must provide the BSEE Regional Supervisor for Production and Development within 60 days after reaching the total depth in your well:

If you commenced drilling a well that otherwise meets the criteria for a certified unsuccessful well on a lease located entirely in more than 200 meters and entirely less than 400 meters of water on or after May 18, 2007, and finished it before December 18, 2008, you must provide the information in paragraph (b) of this section no later than February 17, 2009.