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Originally called the Oil and Gas Wells Database (O&GWDB), this was the very first build of what would become WellWiki. The project was released internally only and contained data on approximately 130,000 wells gathered from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. These data included permits, spuds, and compliance reports (from Jan 1900 to Feb 2013) and production and waste reports (from 2000 to mid-2012). The project team consisted of Joel Gehman, Dror Etzion, and Diego Mastroianni.
WellWiki was publicly launched. The launch coincided with the release of Pennsylvania v1.0, which consisted of data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection on approximately 150,000 oil and gas wells. The project team included Joel Gehman and Michael Hall. Our technology environment consisted of a single server with a 45GB drive and 4GB RAM. The initial software stack included Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS, MySQL 5.5.31, Apache 2.22.2, PHP, PHPMyAdmin, Pure-FTPd, and SSH.
This update expanded our coverage of Pennsylvania to encompass approximately 250,000 oil and gas wells.
This update expanded WellWiki’s coverage of Pennsylvania oil and gas wells to include data through October 2014. With its release, WellWiki’s total coverage reached approximately 878,000 wells, primarily due to the inclusion of expanded production data. The project team consisted of Joel Gehman and Michael Hall. Data for this update were obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and included the following reports: permits, spuds, production, waste, compliance, and well pads.
This update expanded WellWiki’s coverage of Pennsylvania oil and gas wells to include data through May 2015. With its release, WellWiki’s total coverage reached 1.5 million wells. Data for this update were obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and included the following reports: permits, spuds, and compliance. Production data spanned from 1980 (the earliest period available) to March 31, 2015 (the latest period available). Waste data spanned from 1995 (the earliest period available) to March 31, 2015 (the latest period available). However, waste records for 1980-1994, inclusive, were not available for download at the time of this update. As part of this upgrade, we created the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Data Sources wiki page and began footnoting the sources of all data displayed on WellWiki. The project team consisted of Joel Gehman, Mason Strong and Hailey Musselman.
This update expanded WellWiki’s coverage of Pennsylvania oil and gas wells. The project team consisted of Joel Gehman and Keith Mills.
This update expanded WellWiki’s coverage of Pennsylvania oil and gas wells to include data available through April 2019. Data for this update were obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and included the following reports:
• Permits[1] - 223,184 records from 1800-01-01 to 2019-05-20
• Spuds[2] - 213,664 records from 1800-01-01 to 2019-04-30
• Production[3] - 2,305,539 records relating to 148,847 unique wells from 1980-01-01 to 2019-03-31.
• Waste[4] - 1,270,740 records relating to 89,734 unique wells from 1980-01-01 to 2019-03-31.
• Compliance[5] - 452,647 records relating to 122,490 unique wells from 1950-01-01 to 2019-05-20.
• Well Pads[6] - 13,095 records from 1800-01-01 to 2019-05-20.
Overall, this upgrade resulted in the generation of 270,818 new or modified Pennsylvania Well Pages; 9,002 new or modified Pennsylvania Operator Pages; 1,115 new or modified Pennsylvania County and Municipality Pages; and 3,798 new or modified Pennsylvania Well Pad Pages. The team for this project consisted of Joel Gehman, Cole Miller and Ankesh Kumar.
In terms of its explicit data contents, this update utilized the same data underlying our v5.0 release. However, whereas all prior Pennsylvania releases utilized our original database design, we built Pennsylvania v6.0 on an expanded version of the database design that accompanied our release of Alberta v2.0[7]. Incorporating the Pennsylvania data into this database schema necessitated several enhancements. Notably, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection provides data on “Well Pads,” basically sites where more than one well may be permitted from the same location. To accommodate these data, we incorporated a new Well Pads table into our database schema. Additionally, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection reports extensive data regarding inspections, violations, and fines. Comparable data are not available in Alberta, the jurisdiction that served as the basis for our original development of the new database schema. Accordingly, we added new tables related to Inspections, Violations, and Penalties.
We also made several enhancements to our display and reporting of Pennsylvania oil and gas data on WellWiki. First, Pennsylvania has changed its production and waste reporting requirements for unconventional several times, from annual to semiannual to monthly. Additionally, during this transition there was an odd reporting period that spanned from July 2009 to June 2010. Although it is a crude approximation, for reporting purposes on WellWiki’s production table, we divided the values for this period in half, assigning them equally to two new periods we created: 2009-2 and 2010-1. We then aggregated all available data into annual periods, plus reported any data available for years not yet completed. For instance, if well reported production from 2000-0 to 2019-03, meaning for the full calendar year 2000, through to March 2019, we would report annual values for the 2000 to 2018 period, plus monthly values (if any) for the January to March 2019 period. Our Production table now also includes information on the well operator at the time the production was reported. This makes it apparent whether a well has been bought and sold during its operating history.
We also expanded the data displayed on our Operator, and County and Municipality Pages, notably to include “operator” on County and Municipality Pages and "County" and “Municipality” on Operator Pages. This mirrors an enhancement we made as part of our Alberta v3.0[8] update. Finally, this release incorporated data from our Fracking Chemicals v2.0 update. In total, 8,307 Pennsylvania wells reported data through FracFocus; we include those data for each well. Data on Fracking Activities are obtained primarily from FracFocus. For complete details see the Fracking Activities Data Sources[9] page.
Overall, this upgrade resulted in the generation of 270,818 new or modified Pennsylvania Well Pages; 9,002 new or modified Pennsylvania Operator Pages; 1,115 new or modified Pennsylvania County and Municipality Pages; and 3,798 new or modified Pennsylvania Well Pad Pages. The team for this project consisted of Joel Gehman, Cole Miller and Ankesh Kumar. Funding for the project was provided in part by financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the University of Alberta, as well as in-kind support University of Alberta School of Business.