The Texas Oil and Gas Viewer shows a selection of oil and gas wells that are published by the Railroad Commission (
RRC) of Texas. Note that as of May 8, 2021, Texas has 1,343,435 total wells in its inventory. This map is based off of a significant subset of 554,596 wells, and excludes those that are plugged, dry holes, or water wells. In the Texas data, well type and status are combined into a code called "SYMNUM" code, which can be found on page 17
this document. As most viewers are not likely to know the SYMNUM codes, FracTracker has merged the list with the well data so that users can see which type of well is at a given location. Further, we combined the SYMNUM into four basic groups, including:
- Service, Storage, and Injection Wells (SYMNUM = 11,17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 88, 89, 103, 105, 124, 132, 140, 144)
- Production Wells: Horizontal and Directional (SYMNUM = 13, 86, 87)
- Production Wells: Other (SYMNUM = 4, 5, 6, 19, 20, 24)
- Permitted Locations (SYMNUM = 2; further well type not specified)
For added convenience, FracTracker also merged the various county files into a comprehensive statewide layer.
Layers on this map include
Name: Oil and Gas Wells (5-8-2021)
Date: 5-8-2021
Notes: This layer contains 554,596 active and permitted oil and gas wells, including 86,418 permitted locations, 135,741 horizontal and directional production wells, 289,587 other production wells, and 42,840 service, storage, and injection wells. Due to the large number of wells, the layer becomes visible when viewers zoom in to 1:500,000, roughly a county-sized scale. When zoomed out, this layer is replaced by generalized layers for each of the four categories.
Name: Generalized layers
Source: FracTracker Alliance, based on RRC data
Date: Created 6/14/2021, based on 5/8/2021 data
Notes: These four layers show the location of oil and gas wells in Texas in four different categories, including permitted locations, horizontal and directional production wells, other production wells, and service, storage, and injection wells. They were formed by creating a one-mile buffer around each subset of well. Note that due to very heavy density of drilling in Texas, there is significant overlap between these layers. This can be seen to some extent because of the layers' transparency setting, but it becomes much more obvious when users zoom in past the 1:500,000 zoom level, where these generalized layers are replaced with the detailed oil and gas well data, above.
Name: Counties
Date: 2018
Notes: This layer contains county boundaries. Click on any county to see its name.
Name: Shale Plays
Date: 2019
Notes: This layer contains shale and other "tight" plays, or areas where significant oil and gas deposits are expected, but require a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to extract in meaningful quantities. Due to the amount of data on the map, this layer is turned off by default, but can be turned on at any point by the viewer.
Name: Sedimentary Basins
Date: 2016
Notes: This layer contains sedimentary basins, which are formations likely to contain significant oil and gas deposits. One well known example in Texas is the Permian Basin. Due to the amount of data on the map, this layer is turned off by default, but can be turned on at any point by the viewer.
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