Reading well and unit records for a deep project

Operator of record. The Commission's rule says the Form P-4 establishes the operator of an oil lease, gas well or other well and certifies responsibility for regulatory compliance, including plugging, and that the Commission may require evidence that the transferee has the right to operate when a P-4 changes the operator. An applicant who cannot get the previous operator's signature can file a P-4 with an explanatory letter and legal documentation of the applicant's right to operate the property. Before approval, the rule says the Commission notifies the last known operator of record, if that operator's address is available, and gives the operator an opportunity to protest. The rule text above does not describe a P-4 as a title or lease instrument. On the part of its Geothermal page about injection wells for geothermal energy, the Commission says a geothermal energy operator must have an active Form P-5 (Organization Report) and must be the Form P-4 (leaseholder) of an on-schedule well. The page does not say what on-schedule means. This guide does not say how the page's word leaseholder relates to the rule's wording.

Inactive wells. The rule defines an inactive well as an unplugged well that has been spudded (drilling has started) or equipped with cemented casing and has had no reported production, disposal, injection or other permitted activity for more than 12 months. The rule's definitions are written for oil and gas operations, and this guide does not say how it applies to a geothermal well. The Commission says that once it approves a P-4 transferring operatorship, the prior operator is no longer responsible for the inactive well provisions and the acquiring operator has six months from the date of approval to bring inactive wells into compliance with the rule.

Orphaned wells. This is a different status. For the orphaned well program, Natural Resources Code section 89.047 defines an orphaned well as a well with a Commission permit that has no reported production or other Commission-jurisdiction activity for the preceding 12 months and whose operator's organization report has lapsed. The same section says the Commission shall designate a person as operator of such a well if the person files, among other things, a factually supported claim, based on a recognized legal theory, to a continuing possessory right in one of three things accessed by the well: the mineral estate; the "geothermal energy and associated resources estate"; or the geologic space, for the purpose of a geothermal energy conservation well. For the geothermal estate, the text says the claim is established by a current geothermal lease, a recorded deed conveying a fee interest in the geothermal estate, or any other documentation of an interest in it. A land desk reads those documents. It does not decide the claim.