Critical Production and Well Information Updates

By Lisa Stennes

Improvements to Production Information

Oklahoma. After an extensive manual entry process and a thorough quality control check of volumes from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), as well as the direct entry of data from seven of the largest producers in Oklahoma, we believe that our production information is now the most current, correct, complete and consistent data available for the state.

Working with the OCC during its database transition the past year has resulted in some major improvements at the OCC and with its reporting requirements:

• The OCC is now accepting operator-provided digital updates.
• The organization has resolved the issue of its database processing creating inflated volumes.
• Because it will now only accept reported volumes from the company that is approved to report the 1004s, the OCC has eliminated duplicate volumes and can now determine who is authorized to file 1004s.
• The OCC is changing its completion form (1002A) to accommodate reporting information on laterals.

Additionally, we continue to gather production updates from the Oklahoma Tax Commission and are working with the Osage Tribe and BIA to get copies of their records.

Thanks to Dan Boyd at the Oklahoma Geological Survey, we have found historic cumulative volumes in old Vance Rowe reports that were not carried forward. We are researching these and updating our historical records.

North Dakota. We previously reported that we would begin daily updates of producing volumes for North Dakota by the end of this year. While we aren’t quite there yet, testing is underway and we expect to improve the currency of North Dakota production information with daily updates beginning in 2012.

Well Information Updates

Missouri wells. At the request of several customers, we audited the IHS well file against the Missouri state file. We added 8,577 wells, standardizing the state data into consistent IHS information. (The screen capture below shows the wells previously in the database in blue and the wells that have been added in orange.)

California wells. This quarter we completed our audit of California wells, adding 2,780 wells in District Two.

Directional surveys. We added nearly 8,000 directional surveys this quarter. The well database now contains digital directional surveys on over 188,000 wells.

Mud weights and bottomhole temperatures. We continued this quarter with our projects to add mud and temperature data to our well information. Using data from well log headers, we added over 113,000 mud weights and depths and over 133,000 bottomhole temperatures. This data is available on the IHS Enerdeq® Scout Ticket Report.

Elevations. We added 37,049 elevations from log headers and other sources this quarter.

Field names. We updated 31,175 field names in the well database where they were previously reported as unknown.

IHS Land Grid and Lat Longs
During our ongoing Customers First surveys, you have stressed the critical importance of correct US well locations. To meet this need, we kicked off a series of projects in 2010 to compare the IHS lat longs to the regulatory agency lat longs. We have completed these projects in Colorado, Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. 

We are currently working on Wyoming and have 4,273 wells to review where the IHS lat long differs from the regulatory lat long. This represents about 3% of the Wyoming well database. So far we have researched 2,724 and determined that the IHS lat longs are correct on 1,441 wells, the state is correct on 290 wells and neither of us is correct on 993 wells. We have updated the location data and lat longs on the 1,283 wells where IHS was not correct. We are currently researching the remaining wells and will provide updates as the project progresses.

We are planning on working on California next.

As always, I am here if you have any questions. I appreciate you making the time to provide us with your valuable feedback.

Lisa Stennes is the director of US well and production product management at IHS.