Section 38-12-01 - DefinitionsAs used in this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires:
1. "Commission" means the industrial commission of the state of North Dakota.2. "Extraction facility" means any well or mine or other extractive process operated for the purpose of recovering subsurface minerals.3. "Operator" means any person who, duly authorized, is in charge of the development of a lease or the operation of a producing property.4. "Owner" means the person who has the right to explore for, develop, and produce subsurface minerals and to appropriate the subsurface minerals the owner produces either for the owner or for the owner and others.5. "Person" means and includes any natural person, corporation, limited liability company, association, partnership, receiver, trustee, executor, administrator, guardian, fiduciary, or other representative of any kind, and includes any department, agency, or instrumentality of the state or of any governmental subdivision thereof; the masculine gender, in referring to a person, includes the feminine and the neuter genders.6. "Producer" means the owner of an extraction facility which is or has been capable of producing subsurface minerals.7. "Subsurface minerals" means all naturally occurring elements and their compounds, volcanic ash, precious metals, carbonates, and natural mineral salts of boron, bromine, calcium, fluorine, iodine, lithium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, thorium, uranium, and sulfur, and their compounds, but does not include sand and gravel and rocks crushed for sand and gravel.