How to tell when a well begins producing

Oil & Gas Field Operations
1

New to the mineral rights world. Two questions:

  1. How can i tell when a well is completed on my land and when it starts producing, etc…?

  2. What are the industry safeguards for oil comapnies accurately reporting oil production? Its to their advantage to under report production or over report costs that gets passed on the mineral rights owners so who checks their work?

Thanks in advance!

2

The answers are going to change greatly by the state in which the mineral interests are owned.

3

Rick,

Sorry I didn’t specify. I’m in Oklahoma.

4
  1. Give me your exact situation you are in and what you are trying to do and I’ll try to point you the right way. I could write a 2000 word reply on different scenarios and how to find the data and may not answer your question.

Most of the information can be found in three places or four depending on how you count it). The Case Processing Web Application. Almost all well have to have something approved before they can be permited.
The Well Browse Database The well is permitted, a spud report filed, and a completion report filed and the data can be searched in this database. http://www.occeweb.com/Orawebapps/OCCOraWebAppsone.html

The imaging search. Most of the Well Browse data points to here. In some cases you can search here easier for some tasks.
http://imaging.occeweb.com/imaging/OGWellRecords.aspx

In the last few years the OTC has greatly improved the public availability of data with this tool. https://www4.oktax.onenet.net/GrossProduction/gp_PublicSearchPUNbyLegal.php

  1. The industry safeguard is taxes. The sales are reported so the severance taxes are collected. Costs: That can be argued. Primarily ethics and litigation is what keeps that mostly in check. With all of the class action lawsuits that occur, there is a difference of opinion of what can be passed on to the mineral owner and what can’t.
2 Likes
5

Thanks rick:

Tract 1: Undivided 1/2 interest (30 net mineral acres) in the NE SW NW and W/2 SW NW and SW NW NW and SE SW NW and SW SE NW of section 15, township 5 North, Range 1 West of the I.M., McClain County, OK

Tract 2: And undivided 60 acre mineral interest in the NW/4 SW/4 and N/2 SW4 SW4 and SW/4 SW/4 SW/4 of Section 22, Township 5 North, Range 1 West of the I.M., McClain County, OK

6

So you can look up those locations on the above links. You’ll find that section 15 has some orders leading to a well. You can find that it also has a well that was spud in March of 2017 with no followup info. So you can watch for a completion report to be filed. You can also look for the well to have a PUN assigned on the OTC site above. They will need that number to sell product. The well name is the Sharp 5N 1W 10 1HX (API 3508722069) But part of the trick is that you have to look at surrounding locations for well data. In this instance the surface location is 03-5N-1W but it is servicing sections 10 and 15.

Section 22 had some application actions but I don’t see a well record. Charter Oak did the original applications, but it was then assigned to BP. I don’t see your name in the applications of leases. I’m assuming it was under a different name.