Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United extract helium from all gas produced from lands permitted, leased, or otherwise granted under the provisions of this Act, under such rules and regulations as shall be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior: Provided further, That in the extraction of helium from gas produced from such lands, it shall be so extracted as to cause no substantial delay in the delivery of gas produced from the well to the purchaser thereof: And provided further, That citizens of another country, the laws, customs, or regulations of which, deny similar or like privileges to citizens or corporations of this country, shall not by stock ownership, stock holding, or stock control, own any interest in any lease acquired under the provisions of this Act. * OIL AND GAS. SEC. 13. That the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized, under such necessary and proper rules and regulations as he may prescribe, to grant to any applicant qualified under this Act a prospecting permit, which shall give the exclusive right, for a period not exceeding two years, to prospect for oil or gas upon not to exceed two thousand five hundred and sixty acres of land wherein such deposits belong to the United States and are not within any known geological structure of a producing oil or gas field upon condition that the permittee shall begin drilling operations within six months from the date of the permit, and shall, within one year from and after the date of permit, drill one or more wells for oil or gas to a depth of not less than five hundred feet each, unless valuable deposits of oil or gas shall be sooner discovered, and shall, within two years from date of the permit, drill for oil or gas to an aggregate depth of not less than two thousand feet unless valuable deposits of oil or gas shall be sooner discovered. The Secretary of the Interior may, if he shall find that the permittee has been unable with the exercise of diligence to test the land in the time granted by the permit, extend any such permit for such time, not exceeding two years, and upon such conditions as he shall prescribe. Whether the lands sought in any such application and permit are surveyed or unsurveyed the applicant shall, prior to filing his application for permit, locate such lands in a reasonably compact form and according to the legal subdivisions of the public land surveys if the land be surveyed; and in an approximately square or rectangular tract if the land be an unsurveyed tract, the length of which shall not exceed two and one-half times its width, and if he shall cause to be erected upon the land for which a permit is sought a monument not less than four feet high, at some conspicuous place thereon, and shall post a notice in writing on or near said monument, stating that an application for permit will be made within thirty days after date of posting said notice, the name of the applicant, the date of the notice, and such a general description of the land to be covered by such permit by reference to courses and distances from such monument and such other natural objects and permanent monuments as will reasonably identify the land, stating the amount thereof in acres, he shall during the period of thirty days following such marking and posting, be entitled to a preference right over others to a permit for the land so identified. The applicant shall, within ninety days after receiving a permit, mark each of the corners of the tract described in the permit upon the ground with substantial monuments, so that the boundaries can be readily traced on the ground, and shall post in a conspicuous place upon the lands a notice that such permit has been granted and a description of the lands covered thereby : Provided, That in the Territory of Alaska prospecting permits not more than five in number may be granted to any qualified applicant for periods not exceeding four years, actual drilling operations shall begin within two years from date of permit, and oil and gas wells shall be drilled to a depth of not less than five hundred feet, unless valuable deposits of oil or gas shall be sooner discovered, within three years from date of the permit and to an aggregate depth of not less than two thousand feet unless valuable deposits of oil or gas shall be sooner discovered, within four years from date of permit: Provided further, That in said Territory the applicant shall have a preference right over others to a permit for land identified by temporary monuments and notice posted on or near the same for six months following such marking and posting, and upon receiving a permit he shall mark the corners of the tract described in the permit upon the ground with substantial monuments within one year after receiving such permit. SEC. 14. That upon establishing to the satisfaction of the Secretary of the Interior that valuable deposits of oil or gas have been discovered within the limits of the land embraced in any permit, the permittee shall be entitled to a lease for one-fourth of the land embraced in the prospecting permit: Provided, That the permittee shall be granted a lease for as much as one hundred and sixty acres of said lands, if there be that number of acres within the permit. The area to be selected by the permittee, shall be in compact form and, if surveyed, to be described by the legal subdivisions of the public-land surveys; if unsurveyed, to be surveyed by the Government at the expense of the applicant for lease in accordance with rules and regulations to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior and the lands leased shall be conformed to and taken in accordance with the legal subdivisions of such surveys; deposits made to cover expense of surveys shall be deemed appropriated for that purpose, and any excess deposits may be repaid to the person or persons making such deposit or their legal representatives. Such leases shall be for a term of twenty years upon a royalty of 5 per centum in amount or value of the production and the annual payment in advance of a rental of $1 per acre, the rental paid for any one year to be credited against the royalties as they accrue for that year, with the right of renewal as prescribed in section 17 hereof. The permittee shall also be entitled to a preference right to a lease for the remainder of the land in his prospecting permit at a royalty of not less than 12 per centum iu amount or value of the production, and under such other conditions as are fixed for oil or gas leases in this Act, the royalty to be determined by competitive bidding or fixed by such other method as the Secretary may by regulations prescribe: Provided, That the Secretary shall have the right to reject any or all bids. SEC. 15. That until the permittee shall apply for lease to the one quarter of the permit area heretofore provided for he shall pay to the United States 20 per centum of the gross value of all oil or gas secured by him from the lands embraced within his permit and sold or otherwise disposed of or held by him for sale or other disposition. SEC. 16. That all permits and leases of lands containing oil or gas, made or issued under the provisions of this Act, shall be subject to the condition that no wells shall be drilled within two hundred feet of any of the outer boundaries of the lands so permitted or leased, unless the adjoining lands have been patented or the title thereto otherwise vested in private owners, and to the further condition that the permittee or lessee will, in conducting his explorations and mining operations, use all reasonable precautions to prevent waste of of or gas developed in the land, or the entrance of water through wells drilled by him to the oil sands or oil-bearing strata, to the destruction or injury of the oil deposits. Violations of the provisions of this section shall constitute grounds for the forfeiture of the permit or lease, to be enforced through appropriate proceedings in courts of competent jurisdiction. |