West Virginia Oil and Gas Data Sources

We collected data on West Virginia Oil and Gas Wells from the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey (WVGES)

Digital Data Series-5

The core of our West Virginia oil and gas well data was collected from the WVGES’s Digital Data Series-5 (publication DDS-5), WVGES Oil and Gas Well Data for West Virginia.

The current data on WellWiki are based on the April 15, 2015 update. This publication included data on more than 152,000 wells. According to the WVGES, this update contained 21 new data fields in three data tables (Owners/Completions, Production, and Well Samples and Cores). Nearly 123,000 data records were updated or modified to improve the quality of the data. Overall, this release contained more than 3,000,000 data records.

WellWiki’s initial data were based on the October 23, 2013 update, which included data for wells completed to fall 2013. (According to the release notes some tables were current through the week of 13-Sep-2013; others were current through the week of 29-Sep-2013.) This version included more than 186,000 new or modified records since the previous publication of DDS-5, dated April 2, 2012. The data contained in DDS-5 were developed over the past 44 years, and include data related to more than 151,000 permitted and/or completed oil and gas wells in West Virginia dating to the late 1800s. Specifically, DDS-5 contained the following data:

1. well locations (coordinates in latitude/longitude in decimal degrees, latitude/longitude in miles south and west, UTMs; tax district, quadrangle, etc.);

2. well completion and ownership (spud and completion dates, elevation, total depth, deepest formation, IPs, completion method, surface owner and well number, operator, etc.);

3. pay, show, and water intervals (depth to top and bottom of interval, formation at top and bottom of interval, etc.);

4. stratigraphy (formation tops and thicknesses, etc.);

5. production reported since 1979 (monthly and annual gas and oil, year, operator, etc.);

6. plugging (date and depth);

7. bottomhole locations;

8. elogs available in the Survey's log library (log types, depths, etc.); and

9. well samples and cores available in the Survey's sample library (tops and bottoms of intervals, formations, etc.)

The data were supplied in both raw ASCII text files, and in Microsoft Access database format. We utilized the raw ASCII files. The October 24, 2013 release of DDS-5 consisted of 11 .ASC files, all linked using a well’s 10-digit API number. We imported these data into our MySQL database. Below is a brief summary of the files and their contents.

Table Name and Brief Description	Total Records	Updated Records	File Size
OWNERS/COMPLETIONS: Permitted wells contain owners data only. Completed wells contain one record per episode of drilling per well, including spud and completion dates, elevation, well classification, field name, well type, completion method, proposed vertical depth and proposed measured depth, proposed target formation, total vertical depth and total measured depth, both deepest formation penetrated and deepest formation tested, initial and final open flow potentials, rock pressures, rig type, new footage and exploratory footage drilled during this episode of drilling, and DEP’s permit issued date.	154,892	24,484	~53.5 MB
LOCATIONS: Contains data on the locations of permitted and completed wells, with one record per well. Data include tax district, 15’ and 7.5’ quadrangle name for the surface location of the well, and the well coordinates in three forms.	151,448	2,174	~32.8 MB
PAYS/SHOWS/WATER: There are a variable number of records per well because separate records are coded for: each interval of pay or show of hydrocarbons; interval of storage, injection, or observation; or occurrence of a zone of water encountered in the drilling sequence.	338,827	12,077	~39.5 MB
PRODUCTION: Generally one record per well per year. Data in the record include the year for which the production was reported, operator reporting the production data, monthly and annual gas volumes (in Mcf--thousand cubic feet) and oil volumes (in bbl--barrels), and days-on-line. Days-on-line data are available only until 1986, after which operators were no longer required to report those data. Where available, shut-in and flow pressures are provided. A status code indicates the source or quality of the data in the record. Missing data in the monthly volume and days fields are indicated by nulls. The first year for which operators were required to report production data to the State regulatory authority for oil and gas was 1979; reporting compliance improved annually. Data are generally available for the years 1979 through 2012; some data are available prior to that time period. Please note that data for the years 1985, 1987, and 2000 are incomplete.	1,408,562	122,331	~365 MB
STRATIGRAPHY: There are a variable number of records per well because separate records may be coded for each formation/unit for each well. Generally, there is one record per formation/unit identified. Data in the record include the formation/unit name, depth from the surface datum to the top of the formation/unit, and thickness of the formation/unit; quality information for each of these data fields provides additional information about the source or limitations of the data.	707,746	18,579	~101.6 MB
PLUG: There may be one or more records per well. Data include the plug-back date and plug-back total depth.	41,460	737	~2.4 MB
BOTTOMHOLE LOCATIONS: Contains one or more records per well on BOTTOMHOLE LOCATIONS for permitted and/or completed deviated/horizontal well.	2,388	1,023	~213 KB
MECHANICAL LOG CATALOG: These data describe e-logs available in the Survey’s publicly-accessible Log Library, one record per well..	25,027	5,042	~5.0 MB
WELL SAMPLES AND CORES: These data describe well cuttings and cores available in the Survey’s publicly-accessible Well Sample and Core Library, one record per well.	4,558	303	~0.5 MB

Marcellus Well Data

Second, the WVGES website contained a series of data related to oil and gas wells in the Marcellus Formation and other Devonian shales. From this page we downloaded CSV files and metadata related to permitted, completed and cancelled wells, together with production data. Below is a summary of these data.

Table Name and Brief Description	Total Records	File Size
WVGES Permitted Marcellus Wells, Run Date: 3/13/2014	1,416	350 KB
WVGES Completed Marcellus Wells, Run Date: 3/13/2014	2,322	955 KB
WVGES Cancelled Marcellus Wells, Run Date: 3/13/2014	871	201 KB
WVGES Marcellus Shale Completed Wells Monthly Production Data, Run Date: 3/13/2014	10,236	1.6 MB

West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP)

In addition to the WVGES data, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) published oil and gas well data on its website, including data on well locations, quads, spills, violations, production, and abandoned wells. Many of these data appeared to be redundant with data from the WVGES, namely the data on well locations, quads and production. However, we made use of the data on spills, violations and abandoned wells. We downloaded these latter three files on February 23, 2014.

Table Name and Brief Description	Total Records	File Size
Violations On February 23, 2014, we searched: [1] for the period 1/1/1985-12/31/2013.	10,352	924 KB
Spills On February 23, 2014, we searched [2] for the period 1/1/1980 to 12/31/2013. The oldest record dated from 1992.	550	110 KB
Abandoned Wells We downloaded this file on February 23, 2014.	12,226	1.6 MB

These data were added to the DDS-5 in MySQL.

FracFocus

In addition to data from WVGES and WVDEP, we also collected data from FracFocus