I'm interested in tracking down whatever is in the Texas Railroad Commission files showing the history and location of a particular (dry hole) well drilled in West Texas. It's one that was reportedly complted in 1937, so it's much earlier than the time period of records available on line.
I assume that there was a well location plat of some sort filed that exists on microfilm somewhere in the TxRRC files, but the material on their website isn't very detailed.
Does anyone know in particular what sort of data should be in their holding for dry holes drilled in the 1930s?
I don't have an answer to your question, but does it show up on their online GIS map? Some historic wells are shown per the "commisioner's map"
Andy Nold, post: 419146, member: 7 wrote: I don't have an answer to your question, but does it show up on their online GIS map? Some historic wells are shown per the "commisioner's map"
The Dry Hole is plotted on the GIS, but doesn't haven any identifying data attached to it other than "Dry Hole" and the county code.
From my experience in relocating plugged wells and dry holes and any wells that do not have some sort of tree or stem remaining above ground, the chance of finding the actual location is near zero.
You may not even find yourself in the clearing made for the well site.
Even with recorded locations from boundaries and Headright and Section Lines the sealed off pipes stems have never been found close to where they should be.
If you have the actual name of the well and the general area it should appear in the RRC records because they take any site in consideration when letting permits to drill new wells and they keep the logs of all attempted wells to map the netherworld.
I was recently required to show the location of a dry hole for Health Department requirements on a development plan. It too showed up on a GIS map but the City & State required an "exact" location to be shown on the plat. Our Corporation Commission (who maintain the GIS map) kept a "plugged hole" report from 2001 that indicated the casing had been removed to a depth of 4' and then covered in concrete. The property owner reported the site reclamation by the drilling company then placed approx. 8' of fill over the area. I'd like to know how someone is suppose to obtain an "exact" location on something buried 12' or better sixteen years ago.
The plugging report on file showed the hole 1390' +/- east of the west section line road and 490' +/- south of the "1/2 section line fence". I'm sure it was an exact measurement seeing as how the woods are so thick you can't crawl through them...
I can only hope your GIS records were put together with as much precision and thought as ours were. Good luck.
A Harris, post: 419157, member: 81 wrote: From my experience in relocating plugged wells and dry holes and any wells that do not have some sort of tree or stem remaining above ground, the chance of finding the actual location is near zero.
You may not even find yourself in the clearing made for the well site.
Even with recorded locations from boundaries and Headright and Section Lines the sealed off pipes stems have never been found close to where they should be.
If you have the actual name of the well and the general area it should appear in the RRC records because they take any site in consideration when letting permits to drill new wells and they keep the logs of all attempted wells to map the netherworld.
I don't think that it will be much of a problem to locate the well bore since cultural features suggest that the bore was possibly used for a water well when no black gold come a bubbling up, but I'm curious to see who prepared any location plats filed with the RRC and how the location was described since I have a name of a likely candidate who did other surveying in the area at the same time.
I have found the name of the lease and the completion date (in the 1930s) on other source materials that I assume were compiled from RRC records. I'll know when I contact the Commission next week how difficult it will be to get copies of whatever they have, but was curious before then what one would expect to have been filed during the time period that the well was (I assume) permitted.
The RRC does/did not require a survey by an RPLS, it was quite often signed by an oil company Rep or engineer. You can call the RRC with the name or API number and they can provide you with the information.
Kent McMillan, post: 419126, member: 3 wrote: I assume that there was a well location plat of some sort filed that exists on microfilm somewhere in the TxRRC files, but the material on their website isn't very detailed.
Kent-
This is out of my area.
Not knowing what your spacial reference area is, would there be any piping system that would have been hooked up to the neighbouring 'wet' holes that you could work off of ?
(By coincidence, we are working on a rare gas well location. Unfortunately, not in North Aboyne.)
Cheers,
Derek
Greg Shoults RPLS, post: 419168, member: 531 wrote: The RRC does/did not require a survey by an RPLS, it was quite often signed by an oil company Rep or engineer.
In this case, my suspicion is that a particular civil engineer staked the location of the well and produced any plat that was filed. This would have been done back in the 1930s before either land surveyoring or civil engineering were licensed professions in Texas.
DEREK G. GRAHAM OLS OLIP, post: 419185, member: 285 wrote: Not knowing what your spatial reference area is, would there be any piping system that would have been hooked up to the neighbouring 'wet' holes that you could work off of ?
In this particular case, there were a few wildcat wells drilled that were all reported as Dry Holes, so at best the well bore might be presently a water well. That shouldn't be a trick to find since there should be plenty of surface indications. In this case, what I'm interested in discovering is who may have staked the location of the well that was drilled in the 1930s in case it was a civil engineer who also did some other work in the area.
I have found plenty of P/A Wells and Dry Hole Wells as well. I use the RRC GIS Site as a starting point, if the information you need is not available online for the Well you need information, you can try another Well in the same area preferably in the same Lease or Unit, sometimes they will have the logs or all the information for the Lease, In the Oil/Gas Imaged Records for Lease/ID, if not you may get lucky and find a Well Map of the Lease showing the Well sometimes they even have the distances from another Well.
If the casing is still there, finding the Well should be no problem, in my area they cut them about 4 to 5 feet deep.
Kent, If you have the information on the dry hole, you might, maybe, can look back and see if the logs for the wells are in the microfiche records online. That old, they may or may not be. Seems the last one that old I was looking for, I ended up at the RRC office looking in their records at the well logs, and found the drawing as submitted, along with drillers reports of the well being so far from the section lines. That was for a well drilled in the 1940's, IIRC, and in Jones County, so it is very possible the information out west could be recorded differently.
Kent McMillan, post: 419193, member: 3 wrote: In this case, my suspicion is that a particular civil engineer staked the location of the well and produced any plat that was filed. This would have been done back in the 1930s before either land surveyoring or civil engineering were licensed professions in Texas.
It's still done to this day.
