(1) "Construction", as
this term is used in Section
7-9-3.4
NMSA 1978, includes the following activities related to the oil and gas
industry:
(a) building and altering of gas
compression plant facilities and pump stations, including: clearing of property
sites; excavating for foundations; building and setting foundation forms;
mixing, pouring, and finishing concrete foundations for buildings and plant
equipment on foundations; fabricating and installing piping; installing
electrical equipment, insulation, and instruments; erecting buildings; placing
sidewalks, drives, parking areas; installing storage tanks; and dismantling
equipment and reinstalling elsewhere;
(b) building of or extension of gas-gathering
pipelines, including: connecting gathering lines to lease separators,
fabricating and installing meter runs, digging trenches, beveling pipe, welding
pipe, wrapping pipe, backfilling trenches, testing pipelines, fabricating and
installing pipeline drips and installing conduit for pipelines crossing roads
or railroads;
(c) building of or
extension of product pipelines, including: building pressure-reducing stations;
connecting pipelines to storage tanks, fabricating and installing valve
assemblies, digging trenches, beveling pipe, welding pipe, wrapping pipe,
laying pipe, backfilling trenches, testing pipelines and installing conduit for
pipeline crossing roads or railroads;
(d) building secondary-recovery systems,
including: excavating and building foundations, installing engines and water
pumps, installing pipelines for water intake, installing pipelines for carrying
pressured water to input wells, installing instruments and controls and
erecting buildings;
(e) installing
lease facilities, including: installing wellheads, flow lines, chemical
injectors, separators, heater-treaters, tanks, stairways and walkways; building
foundations; and setting pump units and engines, central power units and rod
lines;
(f) demolishing pipelines,
including: digging trenches to uncover pipelines, dismantling and removing
drips and meter runs, backfilling trenches, tamping and smoothing
right-of-way;
(g) increasing
pipeline capacity, including: removing small pipelines and replacing with
larger lines, and digging adjoining trenches and laying new
pipelines;
(h) repairing plant,
including: replacing tubing in atmospheric condensers, replacing plugged boiler
tubing; removing cracked, broken or damaged portions of foundations and
replacing anew; replacing compressors, compressor engines, or pumps; and
regrouting and realigning compressors;
(i) drilling wells, including: drilling
ratholes, excavating cellars and pits, casing crew services, cementing
services, directional drilling, drill stem testing and fishing jobs in
connection with drilling operations;
(j) general dirt work, including: building
roads, paving with caliche or other surfacing materials; digging pits,
trenches, and disposal ponds, building firewalls and foundation footing; and
constructing pads from caliche or other materials.
(2) "Construction", as the term is used in
Section
7-9-3.4
NMSA 1978, does not include the following activities related to the oil and gas
industry:
(a) well servicing, including:
acidizing and fracturing formations; pulling and rerunning rods or tubing;
loading or unloading a well; shooting; scraping paraffin; steaming flow lines
and tubing; inspecting equipment; fishing jobs, other than in connection with
drilling operations; bailing cave-ins; reverse circulating and resetting
packers;
(b) lease and plant
maintenance, including: cleaning; weed-control; preventive care of machinery,
pipelines, gathering systems, and engines; tank cleaning; testing of flow lines
by pressure or X-ray means; cleaning lines and tubing by acid treatment or
mechanical means, or replacing and restoring machinery components;
(c) transporting equipment, including:
transporting drilling rigs, rigging-up and rigging-down, and hauling water and
mud;
(d) salvaging of materials
from a "production unit", as defined in the Oil and Gas Emergency School Tax
Act, such as: killing the gas pressure, removing casing heads, welding pull
nipples on the casing, cutting or shooting casing strings, pulling casings from
the well bore, cementing to fill the abandoned well or plug the well, filling
the cellar, and welding steel pipe markers;
(e) rental of equipment such as: power tongs,
blowout preventors, tanks, pipe racks, core barrels, integral parts of a
drilling rig or integral parts of a circulation unit, for transactions on or
after January 1, 2013, see Section
7-9-52.1
NMSA 1978;
(f) measuring, "logging"
and surveying services in connection with the drilling of an oil or gas well
are construction-related services as of January 1, 2013, see Section
7-9-52
NMSA 1978. "Logging" as that term is used in this subsection is a method of
testing or measuring an oil or gas well by recording various aspects of the
geological formations penetrated by the well.