Range Resources’ Lacey Selvoski writing in the Fall 2016 issue of Esri News for Petroleum describes how, with help from Esri partner Latitude Geographics/Geocortex, it has provided comprehensive maps of old wells and leases. These have been used by Range’s land department in the dash for acreage in the Marcellus shale play.
The land department needed to know who owned what and whether prior lease transfers were legal. The geology and drilling departments wanted historic well location data to avoid collisions and minimize environmental impact.
Range studied records and maps showing landownership as far back as the early 1900s. Field visits were made to validate historic well locations, looking for clues such as rusty casing, holes or small depressions and collecting GPS coordinates. Range digitized maps and field data for over 86,000 historic wells throughout the area.
Today, Range’s land department has web-based GIS access to wells, maps and other cultural information. The historic land and well map provides a starting point for title clearance. Users click historic wells to see the production status of the well and retrieve the lease’s status.
This article originally appeared in Oil IT Journal 2016 Issue # 9.
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