The question. What does the oil and gas record hold about a piece of ground, and what can it not tell me?
Why the record comes first
"Geopressured geothermal" describes deep reservoirs in sedimentary basins where the fluid is held at pressures above the normal hydrostatic gradient; sources describe them as holding hot brine with dissolved methane. A gradient here is pressure per foot of depth, counted in psi (pounds per square inch) per foot, and hydrostatic means the pressure from a column of water. The Bureau of Economic Geology (1982) and the U.S. Geological Survey (1979) describe the normal gradient as about 0.465 psi per foot. BEG, the Bureau of Economic Geology, picked the "operational" top of geopressure in the Wilcox trend of the Texas Gulf Coast at about the depth where the gradient reaches 0.7 psi per foot. A National Renewable Energy Laboratory study (2012) used, as its working definition, a brine reservoir above 212 degrees F with a gradient above 0.7 psi per foot.
The National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR, the former National Renewable Energy Laboratory) said in section 6.6 of its 2025 market report that sedimentary geothermal resources present the possibility of leveraging existing data and technologies from the oil and gas industry. BEG said in 2021 that interest is rising in reusing or repurposing existing or depleted oil and gas fields for geothermal, noting that infrastructure, particularly wells, is already in place. Both are statements of interest by research bodies. Neither says whether any particular well or lease is suitable for anything, and neither does this guide.
A land desk starts reading a tract with the oil and gas record: the well records the agencies keep, and the leases, units (tracts pooled and operated as one) and easements in the county records.
Source: The Geopressured-Geothermal Research Program: An Overview, U.S. Department of Energy program staff via OSTI, April 1989; Assessment of Geothermal Resources of the United States 1978, Circular 790, U.S. Geological Survey, 1979; Wilcox Sandstone Reservoirs in the Deep Subsurface along the Texas Gulf Coast, Their Potential for Production of Geopressured Geothermal Energy, Bureau of Economic Geology, 1982; Recoverable Resource Estimate of Identified Onshore Geopressured Geothermal Energy in Texas and Louisiana (Presentation), National Renewable Energy Laboratory via OSTI, abstract of a 2012 conference presentation; 2025 U.S. Geothermal Market Report, section 6.6, National Laboratory of the Rockies; Geothermal Anywhere, Texas' Next Great Energy Opportunity, Bureau of Economic Geology, July 15, 2021. Read October 4, 2026.
What Texas keeps
The Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) keeps the oil and gas well records. It says well records for all of its districts, for the period 1964 to the present, are available through its Oil and Gas Imaged Records Query, the Public GIS Viewer and the Wellbore Query, and that oil and gas records before 1981 are also on microformat (microfilm, microfiche, unit jackets). The page heading reads 1920 to present, and a microfilm section says unit jackets and well record runs (the agency's names for older well forms, plats and logs on film) cover approximately the years from 1920 to the mid 1960s. Its Public GIS Viewer shows wells, pipelines, surveys and related features in a map view, according to a December 2020 user guide.
| Record | What the agency says it holds |
|---|---|
| Application to drill (Form W-1) and plat | Listed as part of the well records. Applications to drill submitted after May 2005 are electronic only. |
| Completion report (G-1 or W-2) | Listed, with attachments. |
| Plugging report (W-3) | Listed, with attachments. |
| Form P-4 | Listed, under the name Producer's Transportation Authority. The list also has a miscellaneous category, such as correspondence and directional surveys. |
| Well logs | Images received since July 2004 are in the Imaged Records Query and the Public GIS Viewer. Logs from September 1985 forward also exist on paper and microfiche. |
| Production data | 1993 to the present is on the internet through the Production Data Query. 1992 and earlier is on microformat. |
The Commission's rule on applications to drill covers any oil well, gas well, brine production well or geothermal resource well. The well records page itself is written about oil and gas wells and does not say whether geothermal wells are in these sets, so a geothermal search is made and noted separately.
Source: Oil and Gas Well Records, Railroad Commission of Texas; Public GIS Viewer User Guide, Railroad Commission of Texas; 16 Texas Administrative Code Chapter 3, section 3.5, as in effect December 8, 2025. Read October 4, 2026.
What Louisiana keeps
Source: Records Research Guide, Office of Conservation, updated February 19, 2026; SONRIS Guides, How to Access Database Records and Document Images and agency home page, Louisiana Department of Conservation and Energy (formerly Department of Energy and Natural Resources). Read October 4, 2026.
The Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources became the Department of Conservation and Energy on October 1, 2025. The state says many public records kept by the Office of Mineral Resources are available online through SONRIS, its Strategic Online Natural Resources Information System. The department's SONRIS guides list tutorials on well searches and on filters, sort and export, and note that the interface changed in October 2025, so older descriptions of the menus may not match.
The Office of Conservation says all engineering documents and issued permit documents it received since 2000 are imaged by serial number, and that older well files may have documents that are not imaged, available on microfiche, reel or paper. It says all field orders, which reflect unitization (the pooling of tracts) matters among other things, are imaged by order number in SONRIS Document Access. It describes unit survey plats as plats depicting the mineral ownership of a pooled unit, required only for units that produced, most of them imaged and indexed by field order.
What the record cannot say
The Railroad Commission says it has no authority over lease and royalty matters, the financing of oil and gas activities, property rights matters, and bankruptcy. A land desk reads who holds the minerals, and any depth severance, in deeds, leases and releases in the county records.
The rule says the Form P-4 establishes the operator of a well and certifies responsibility for regulatory compliance. It does not describe the P-4 as a lease or a deed.
The Commission's production data is stated for oil and gas production. Rule text requires producers of crude oil, natural gas or geothermal resources to file monthly reports, on Form PR (Monthly Production Report) or on Form GT-2 (producer's monthly report of geothermal wells). This guide does not say where GT-2 data is published.
A count of wells in an area, or a depth on a completion report, is what a record says. It is not evidence of any resource.
Source: Oil and Gas Well Records and 16 Texas Administrative Code Chapter 3, sections 3.58(a)(1) and 3.58(b), Railroad Commission of Texas; Records Research Guide, Office of Conservation, Louisiana. Read October 4, 2026.
A made-up area, read in order
Plate 1 is a made-up area: four survey sections, five tracts, one lease (L1), one unit (U1), four wells (W1 to W4) and a pipeline easement. Each line on it is read from a different record.
Where each line is read
- Survey section linecounty records and plats
- Tract linedeeds in the county records
- Lease boundarythe lease itself, and any release
- Unit outlinethe unit designation on file
- Wellagency well records
- Pipeline easementthe easement instrument
The lines do not match. W2 sits inside the unit but outside the lease. W3 sits inside both. Each fact is read from its own record.
- Section lines and tract lines come from plats and deeds in the county records.
- The lease boundary comes from the lease itself and any release.
- The unit outline comes from the unit designation on file.
- The wells come from the agency well records.
- The pipeline comes from the easement instrument.
Laid over each other, the lines do not match. In the sketch, W2 sits inside the unit but outside the lease, W3 sits inside both, and W4 sits inside the lease but outside the unit. Asking who holds what under one tract returns five answers from five records. How deep each right runs is read from the depth wording in the deed, lease and unit documents. Guide 2 covers that reading.