Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest, and cultural value. On Earth, it includes sunlight, atmosphere, water, land, all minerals along with all vegetation, and wildlife.
A non-renewable resource is a natural resource that cannot be readily replaced by natural means at a pace quick enough to keep up with consumption. An example is carbon-based fossil fuels. The original organic matter, with the aid of heat and pressure, becomes a fuel such as oil or gas. Earth minerals and metal ores, fossil fuels and groundwater in certain aquifers are all considered non-renewable resources, though individual elements are always conserved.
The Hubbert peak theory says that for any given geographical area, from an individual oil-producing region to the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum production tends to follow a bell-shaped curve. It is one of the primary theories on peak oil.
Coalbed methane, coalbed gas, coal seam gas (CSG), or coal-mine methane (CMM) is a form of natural gas extracted from coal beds. In recent decades it has become an important source of energy in United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries.
Unconventional oil is petroleum produced or extracted using techniques other than the conventional method. Industry and governments across the globe are investing in unconventional oil sources due to the increasing scarcity of conventional oil reserves. Unconventional oil and gas have already made a dent in international energy linkages by reducing US energy import dependency.
The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 30 U.S.C. § 181 et seq. is a United States federal law that authorizes and governs leasing of public lands for developing deposits of coal, petroleum, natural gas and other hydrocarbons, in addition to phosphates, sodium, sulfur, and potassium in the United States. Previous to the act, these materials were subject to mining claims under the General Mining Act of 1872.
Mineral rights are property rights to exploit an area for the minerals it harbors. Mineral rights can be separate from property ownership. Mineral rights can refer to sedentary minerals that do not move below the Earth's surface or fluid minerals such as oil or natural gas. There are three major types of mineral property; unified estate, severed or split estate, and fractional ownership of minerals.
Depletion is an accounting and tax concept used most often in the mining, timber, and petroleum industries. It is similar to depreciation in that it is a cost recovery system for accounting and tax reporting: "The depletion deduction" allows an owner or operator to account for the reduction of a product's reserves.
Canada has access to all main sources of energy including oil and gas, coal, hydropower, biomass, solar, geothermal, wind, marine and nuclear. It is the world's second largest producer of uranium, third largest producer of hydro-electricity, fourth largest natural gas producer, and the fifth largest producer of crude oil. In 2006, only Russia, the People's Republic of China, the United States and Saudi Arabia produce more total energy than Canada.
Oil and gas law in the United States is the branch of law that pertains to the acquisition and ownership rights in oil and gas both under the soil before discovery and after its capture, and adjudication regarding those rights.
Shale gas is an unconventional natural gas that is found trapped within shale formations. Since the 1990s a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has made large volumes of shale gas more economical to produce, and some analysts expect that shale gas will greatly expand worldwide energy supply.
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources is a department within the government of Alaska in the United States of America. The department has the mission of responsibly developing Alaska's resources by making them available for maximum use and benefit consistent with the public interest.
Commonwealth Edison Co. v. Montana, 453 U.S. 609 (1981), is a 6-to-3 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that a severance tax in Montana does not violate the Commerce Clause or the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.
Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 U.S. 130 (1982), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States holding that an Indian tribe has the authority to impose taxes on non-Indians that are conducting business on the reservation as an inherent power under their tribal sovereignty.
The North Dakota oil boom refers to the period of rapidly expanding oil extraction from the Bakken Formation in the state of North Dakota that lasted from the discovery of Parshall Oil Field in 2006, and peaked in 2012, but with substantially less growth noted since 2015 due to a global decline in oil prices. Despite the Great Recession, the oil boom resulted in enough jobs to provide North Dakota with the lowest unemployment rate in the United States from 2008 to at least 2014. The boom gave North Dakota, a state with a 2013 population of about 725,000, a billion-dollar budget surplus. North Dakota, which ranked 38th in per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in 2001, rose steadily with the Bakken boom, and had a per capita GDP 29% above the national average by 2013.
State trust lands were granted by the United States Congress to states upon entering the Union. These lands were designated to support essential public institutions which are primarily public schools. State trust land managers lease and sell these lands to generate revenue for current and future designated beneficiaries. Predominantly found in the western United States, 46 million acres of land are currently designated as trust lands and the proceeds from the lease and sale of these lands are distributed into a state's permanent fund and used for many purposes.
Taxation in New Mexico comprises the taxation programs of the U.S state of New Mexico. All taxes are administered on state- and city-levels by the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department, a state agency. The principal taxes levied include state income tax, a state gross receipts tax, gross receipts taxes in local jurisdictions, state and local property taxes, and several taxes related to production and processing of oil, gas, and other natural resources.
The petroleum fiscal regime of a country is a set of laws, regulations and agreements which governs the economical benefits derived from petroleum exploration and production. The regime regulates transactions between the political entity and the legal entities involved. A commercial or legal entity in this context is commonly an oil company, and two or more companies may establish partnerships to share economic risks and investment capital.
United States energy law is a function of the federal government, states, and local governments. At the federal level, it is regulated extensively through the United States Department of Energy. Every state, the federal government, and the District of Columbia collect some motor vehicle excise taxes. Specifically, these are excise taxes on gasoline, diesel fuel, and gasohol. While many western states rely a great deal on severance taxes on oil, gas, and mineral production for revenue, most states get a relatively small amount of their revenue from such sources.
A mineral tax is any tax, excise or other government-imposed fee on mineral resources, such as crude oil or ores. The taxation of minerals serves as a price to extract scarce resources, such as petroleum and crude oil, which are owned by the government. By taxing minerals, the government is able to secure a certain share of the minerals. Mineral taxes should possess neutral characteristics, to maintain incentives for investors and maximize the tax revenue for the government, while minimizing the variability and uncertainty of the amount of tax money collected. Since the 1950s it is more common to use special taxes like royalty taxes with ordinary taxes. Taxing minerals is the more economic approach to incentivise environmental thinking and an alternative to intervene in the market directly.
