Each statement below is a source's own, with its year and scope, followed by where the oil and gas records for the same ground are kept and which records the DOE geopressured program left.
Geography as sources state it
The sources describe regions, basins and trends. They do so at their own scale and date.
Sources: Circular 726, USGS; Research Program Overview, DOE; Report of Investigations 117, BEG; Summary Report Compilation, Volume I, LSU for DOE; Geothermal History, Section 3.0, DOE; Recoverable Resource Estimate, NREL. Read October 4, 2026.
| Source and year | What it says | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| USGS Circular 726, 1975 | Geopressured zones in the northern Gulf of Mexico basin are known to occur in Tertiary sediments beneath an area of over 278,500 square kilometers, extending from the Rio Grande in Texas northeastward to the vicinity of the mouth of the Pearl River in Louisiana. | 1975 data, onshore and offshore to the shelf edge. |
| DOE overview, 1989 | Geopressured brine reservoirs with pressures approaching the lithostatic load are known to occur onshore and offshore beneath the Gulf of Mexico coast, along the Pacific west coast, in Appalachia and in deep sedimentary basins elsewhere in the United States. | A geography statement, not a resource estimate. |
| Bureau of Economic Geology, 1982 | The resulting map puts the top of geopressure between 8,000 and 13,000 feet in depth along the Wilcox trend, deeper in high-sandstone areas and shallower in high-shale areas. Six geothermal fairways were identified in the Wilcox Group. Only one was said to have high porosity and permeability and so high potential for geopressured geothermal energy production. | Wilcox Group, Texas Gulf Coast only. |
| Louisiana State University for DOE, 1998 | Initial investigations in the DOE research program delineated the geopressured geothermal corridors in South Louisiana and the Texas Gulf Coast. | A compilation of 1970s to 1990s research. It says nothing about who may lease. The report says the views of its authors are not necessarily those of the United States Government. |
| DOE history chapter, 2010 | Geopressured resources occur throughout the United States, most prominently along the northern Gulf of Mexico basin and the Pacific West coast. DOE chose to focus on northern coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico, where extensive information was available from hydrocarbon exploration and production. In general, it gives the depth to the operational top of geopressure as 2,150 to 3,690 meters (7,050 to 12,100 feet) along the Texas Gulf coast, deeper to the northeast in Louisiana at 2,765 to 5,530 meters (9,070 to 18,140 feet). The first accomplishment it lists is identifying onshore fairways in Louisiana and Texas. | The chapter gives no county or parish boundaries for the fairways. |
| NREL, 2012 | NREL said the formations with the greatest potential for recoverable energy are located in the Gulf coastal region of Texas and Louisiana. | Identified onshore sites in the two states. A 2012 abstract, not a statement about any tract. |
A source's geography says nothing about a parcel. A basin, trend, corridor or fairway is a statement by one source at one scale and date. It does not say what is under a lease, a tract or a well.
Where the oil and gas record comes in
Sources link the topic to oil and gas work in three ways. DOE chose its focus area because extensive information was available from hydrocarbon exploration and production. A 2025 national laboratory report says sedimentary geothermal resources present the possibility of leveraging existing data and technologies from the oil and gas industry. The Bureau of Economic Geology wrote in 2021 that interest is rising in reusing or repurposing existing or depleted oil and gas fields, noting that infrastructure, particularly wells, is already in place. That is a description of interest. It does not say that any well may be reused or what approvals would apply. The same article describes a Gulf geopressured zone with pressures well above hydrostatic, and a 1 MW demonstration plant that ran for 6 months. The DOE chapter dates the plant's run from October 1989 to the end of May 1990, about eight months. The two sources differ, and this page does not reconcile them.
For a land desk the overlap shows up as records. The agency files in the table below hold well files, logs and production records and, in Louisiana, field orders and unit plats.
Sources: Geothermal Anywhere, BEG (2021); 2025 Market Report, National Laboratory of the Rockies. Read October 4, 2026.
Where the records live
| Agency and record | What the agency says | Date of source |
|---|---|---|
| Texas Railroad Commission, Imaged Records Query and Wellbore Query | Under the sub-heading "Oil and Gas Well Records (1920 to Present)", in the section "Information Available in Central Records", the page says well records for all districts for the period 1964 to the present are available through the Imaged Records Query, the Public GIS Viewer and the Wellbore Query, and that records before 1981 are also available on microformat. Its microfilm section says unit jackets and well records runs cover approximately the years between 1920 to the mid 1960s. Contents: applications to drill and plats, completion reports, plugging reports, Form P-4 and miscellaneous items. The page does not say whether geothermal wells are included. | Undated page |
| Texas Railroad Commission, Public GIS Viewer | Shows wells, pipelines, surveys and related features in a map view. Also carries well records from 1964 to the present. | User guide, December 2020. The current viewer may differ. |
| Texas Railroad Commission, logs and production | Well log images received since July 2004 are online. Production data from 1993 to the present is online, and 1992 and earlier is on microformat. The page covers oil and gas production and does not mention geothermal production reports. | Undated page |
| Louisiana SONRIS (Strategic Online Natural Resources Information System) | The state says many public records kept by the Office of Mineral Resources are available online there. A 2014 department feature describes oil and gas records, document images, leasing records, maps and coastal use permits. A guides page says the interface changed in October 2025. It does not state the geographic or date coverage of the well data. | Undated page; April 21, 2014 feature |
| Louisiana Office of Conservation, well files | The guide says all engineering and issued permit documents received since 2000 have been imaged by serial number. Older well files may have documents that are not imaged, available on microfiche or reel at the LaSalle Building or on paper at a District Office. | Guide updated February 19, 2026 |
| Louisiana Office of Conservation, field orders and unit plats | The guide says all orders have been imaged by order number, and that orders reflect unitization matters, exceptions to Title 43 and other activities. Most dockets have not been imaged. Unit survey plats are required only for units that produced, and most received have been imaged and indexed by field order. Some may have been missed. | Guide updated February 19, 2026 |
The Railroad Commission also says, on its well records page, that it has no authority over lease and royalty matters or property rights matters. Its well records are read as the agency's regulatory records, not as a record of title. Coverage is as each agency states it in the table.
Sources: Oil and Gas Well Records and Public GIS Viewer User Guide, Railroad Commission of Texas; How to Access Database Records, SONRIS feature, SONRIS Guides and Records Research Guide, and agency home page, Louisiana Department of Conservation and Energy (formerly Department of Energy and Natural Resources). Read October 4, 2026.
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.
Records from the DOE program
The table lists reports and record pages on Gulf Coast geopressured geothermal fairways, test wells and plugging, hosted online at the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) and at OSTI, the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information. Each line gives the title, the organization, the year, a link, and only what the source says the item contains. What the program found is on What geopressured geothermal means.
| Record | Organization and year | What the source says it contains |
|---|---|---|
| Geothermal Resources, Frio Formation, Upper Texas Gulf Coast (Geological Circular 76-3) | BEG, 1976 | A regional study of the Upper Texas Gulf Coast with 52 figures, undertaken to outline fairways for geothermal energy. The BEG page does not say who funded it. It is a 1976 BEG record of fairway mapping, not a DOE program result. |
| Geothermal Resources, Wilcox Group, Texas Gulf Coast (ORO-4891-3) | BEG for DOE, 1978 | Eight Wilcox Group geothermal fairways identified, with control wells chosen to provide stratigraphic dip sections spaced 15 to 20 miles apart along the Texas Gulf Coast, and electrical well logs from the eight fairways shown. The 1982 BEG report on the same trend, in the table above, says six fairways. The two counts are not reconciled here. |
| Geopressured Geothermal Fairway Evaluation and Test-Well Site Location, Frio Formation, Texas Gulf Coast (ORO-4891-4) | BEG for DOE, 1978 | Frio Formation fairways, a grid of correlation cross sections, six Frio map units, sandstone-trend maps and minimum prospect criteria, and a geothermal test well site in the Austin Bayou Prospect, which extends over 60 square miles. It is a 1978 prospect description. Its predictions are the authors' projections, not test results. |
| A Prospectus: Geopressured Geothermal Prospects and Test-Well Sites, Wilcox Group and Frio Formation, Texas Gulf Coast (zip file, 47.7 megabytes) | BEG for DOE, December 1978 | Four prospects and test-well sites that the report says were believed to represent the most favorable locations for testing the resource along the Texas Gulf Coast, with stratigraphic and structural cross sections and maps prepared for the fairways. The scanned report and six oversize figure plates are online. The report says the sites were chosen on geology alone and that environmental aspects and surface and mineral rights had not been considered. It describes site selection before drilling and is not a test result. |
| Wilcox Sandstone Reservoirs in the Deep Subsurface along the Texas Gulf Coast, Final Report (DOE/ET/28461-T1) | BEG for DOE, October 1979 | Regional setting, stratigraphic sections, Lower Wilcox sandstone distribution, formation pressure, formation temperature used to delineate geothermal fairways, and six named Wilcox fairways. The OSTI record names them; this page does not. |
| Consolidation of Geologic Studies of Geopressured Geothermal Resources in Texas, 1989 Annual Report | BEG for DOE, May 1990 | A structure map contoured on top of the C-zone, an index map of the Pleasant Bayou fault block showing well control and cross section lines, and electric-log cross sections of the fault-block area, labeled A to E. The figures named here are the ones listed for Section I of the report, on the Pleasant Bayou geopressured geothermal reservoir. The report has other sections; its contents page lists them. The PDF is 252 pages. |
| Contractor for Geopressured-Geothermal Sites: Final Contract Report, Volume 1, Fiscal Years 1986 to 1990 (DOE/ID/12578-3-Vol.1) | Eaton Operating Co., Institute of Gas Technology and Ben Holt Co., 1992 | Per its abstract, field tests and studies to determine the production behavior of geopressured-geothermal reservoirs, with results for the Gladys McCall, Pleasant Bayou and Hulin sites, covering testing of wells through October 1990. |
| Summary Report Compilation, Volume I: Executive Summary | LSU Basin Research Institute for DOE, June 1998 | A 19-page summary that states sixteen wells were tested under two testing programs. It holds a figure locating the wells investigated and a table summarizing test results by well. Detailed results are in Volumes 2-A and 2-B. The page does not say where the underlying program data, cores or logs are held. |
| Summary Report Compilation, Volume 2-A | LSU Basin Research Institute for DOE, June 1998 | A 195-page file that includes the program's funding history table. The OSTI record lists resource description, program history, program cost summaries and funding timelines, and named test wells. |
| Summary Report Compilation, Volume 2-B | LSU Basin Research Institute for DOE, June 1998 | A 370-page file. Per its abstract, 197 figures and 64 tables covering, among other studies, the design well program, the Sweet Lake and Parcperdue sites (Dow/DOE L.R. Sweezy No. 1), the Gladys McCall and Pleasant Bayou wells, test results, environmental monitoring, the Pleasant Bayou hybrid power system, and plug abandonment and well site restoration of three test sites. |
| Geothermal Well Site Restoration and Plug and Abandonment of Wells, Gladys McCall and Willis Hulin test sites, Louisiana (EGG-EP-11414) | Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, August 1994 | Work permits and authorizations, plug and abandonment reports, cost and salvage reports, site locations, grid maps and photographs for the Gladys McCall site in Cameron Parish and the Willis Hulin site in Vermilion Parish. It says restoration of the McCall site required removal of naturally occurring radioactive material, which was costly and time-consuming. It records that the Louisiana test wells were plugged. |
| Final Report for the Geothermal Well Site Restoration and Plug and Abandonment of Wells, DOE Pleasant Bayou Test Site | Idaho National Engineering Laboratory and ECO Solutions, 1994 | The final phase of the research project, plug and abandonment of the wells and site restoration, at the Brazoria County, Texas site. The abstract also names the three research well sites. It does not say when each well was plugged. |
| Geothermal research area, publications page | BEG, undated page | A list headed Contract Reports Prepared by Bureau Researchers, with links to geothermal reports from 1978 to 2005. Titles that name geopressured geothermal include 1978 (prospects and test well sites), 1979 (an environmental overview, and baseline monitoring at Pleasant Bayou No. 1), 1986 (the 1984 annual report), 1990 and 1992. The list also has reports on other Texas geothermal topics. The page says one map prepared for DOE, the Geothermal Gradient Map of Texas, is not online and is available on request. |
These are individual reports and record pages. They are not a statement of where the program's records as a whole are kept, and the Method page lists that as a gap. A report that shows a well, a fairway or a prospect says nothing about the land under it today.
Sources: the record pages linked in the table, at BEG, OSTI and the BEG publications page. Read October 4, 2026.