Now an oil scout can often just turn on his or her desktop or laptop, or smartphone on the fly, and search the Internet, or a favorite database or spreadsheet, for the required information.

Now an oil scout can often just turn on his or her laptop or smartphone on the fly, and search the Internet for the required information.

The oil and gas industry has embraced information technology (IT) for a generation. Oil scouting has too. This should surprise no one. Like so many other things in our society — in business, government, health care, education and entertainment — computers and microprocessors rule the roost.

State records
The whole process starts at your state or regional regulatory office, or the official web site of the agency in question. Usually where you file the initial paperwork for an oilfield transaction depends on who owns the leasehold property (i.e. the federal government, the state or a private property owner).

From meet ing bonding requirements to acquiring the new drilling permits, companies can sometimes apply online, especially for the forms needed. Even if a paper copy is required, it is often scanned for later review as a digital file. As the process continues, and thanks to online filings, some “paperwork” is now paperless in many states, be it for completions, production reports or well pluggings. This sets the stage for future digital retrieval of the data.

Many state oil and gas regulatory bodies — departments of natural resources, oil and gas boards, conservation commissions — rely heavily on IT to share their oilfield data. But no regulatory agency in the world handles more raw oilfield data than the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC). Most of the oil and gas wells drilled in the world are drilled in the USA, and most of those are drilled in Texas. For example, in April, Baker Hughes estimated there was an average of 2,676 drilling rigs working around the world, including 1,479 in the USA. The total in Texas was 633 active rigs, which represented about 23 percent of the world total and about 43 percent of America’s total.

The RRC hosts a web site worthy of an industry leader. All kinds of oilfield data, oil scout data, can be viewed, downloaded or purchased at the very user-friendly site. Indeed, it is a veritable feast of data! Even if you don’t operate in Texas, it’s an interesting site to check out!

Besides normal oil and gas well records, the RRC offers information regarding well logs, production, producing fields and pipeline data. A public GIS Map Viewer for well and pipeline data can also be accessed online.
The RRC explains it like this: “The Railroad Commission maintains historical information that is used by employees, other state agencies, local government, the oil and gas industry and the general public in its Central Records and Imaging units. An estimated 132 million pages of analog and digital documents encompassing the history of each Texas oil and natural gas well from the drilling permit application to the final plugging report are preserved.”

RRC records can be searched by key fields or full text. The Oil and Gas Potential Profile includes applications to drill, completion reports, plugging records, producers’ transportation authority and other records from 1964 to present. The Well Log Profile includes images of all well logs received since July 2004. For more information visit www.rrc.state.tx.us/.

Private business
Oil scouts comes in different forms and sizes. There are companies that sell maps, logs and computerized data, or offer their services online. Other scouts may only work in that capacity part-time. Or they may also wear other hats and be geologists, engineers, landmen or other field personnel.

Oil scouting is still very serious business to IHS Inc., a global network of technical teams and industry experts that monitor petroleum E&P activity around the world. Its vast database includes information on approximately 4 million U.S. wells, including some merged from the former companies Petroleum Information Corporation (PI) and Dwights Energydata, Inc.
Steve Trammel, a senior product manager in Englewood, Colorado, said two IHS products in particular serve the scouting community well: Drilling Wire on the Web and Energy News on Demand.

“Drilling Wire on the Web is the Internet equivalent of the old ‘yellow top’ reports produced by PI and used by scouts for many years to track U.S. well activity,” Trammel explained. “Today it provides online data from anywhere in the world and tracks wells from the permitthrough completion and final status.”

Nearly 500 companies and 20,000 users receive daily drilling information directly to their desktop computers through this timely, comprehensive service, Trammel said. In addition, the data are delivered with IHS latitude and longitude well spots tied to the land grid of WhiteStar Corporation, a leading provider of cartographic data to the oil and gas industry. This allows well information to be placed in a visual context with various mapping applications.

Energy News On Demand is a web-based news service with in-depth editorial news and special reports about the industry. Updated as often as every 15 minutes on business days, it includes information about such activity as lease sales, new regulations and legislation, and oil and gas prices. Full U.S. or regional subscription coverage is available.

The balancing act of gathering information and deciding what to do with it is played out every day.

Just to get an idea about how an IHS Energy News On Demand release might read, here’s a description from a May report: “Chesapeake Appalachia LLC has scheduled several Marcellus Shale tests in northwestern Wyoming County, Pennsylvania. Chesapeake’s horizontal tests are slated to be drilled from a common drilling pad about three and three-quarter miles south of the Bradford County line. The 1H Rosalie (API 37-131-20034) is expected to reach a total depth of 13,860 feet, or a true vertical depth of 7,475. The 2H Rosalie (API 37-131-20030) has a projected total depth of 13,690 feet, or a true vertical depth of 7,544 feet…

“Three miles southeast of Chesapeake’s planned Rosalie wells is the operator’s 2H Cappucci (API 37-131-20023), which was drilled in April. At last report, Chesapeake was completing the 13,210-feet horizontal Marcellus Shale well. The well had a proposed true vertical depth of 7,920 feet.”

Yet another reporting company is AESC member RigData, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, which specifically tracks and publishes information on oil and gas drilling activity in the U.S., the Gulf of Mexico and Canada. RigData collects and publishes extensive information on permits-to-drill, completions data, drilling rig locations and overall oil and gas drilling activity. Oil and gas operators use the reports to identify exploration trends, find available rigs and identify new production as it first comes on line.

Tight holes
For the E&P business, knowing where to drill or what leases or producing properties to buy next, is the information that many companies seek. This balancing act of gathering information and deciding what to do with it is played out every day. The risks and rewards can both be very high. That is why many companies spend a lot of money acquiring and collecting information, often using oil scouts to do so.

Some companies might ignore the drilling history in a given area and fail to check old well records, if any records exist at all. This is usually a mistake and could very easily result in a dry hole or two, or a well in a water-prone formation. Yes, ignoring past well records can be costly.

However, some companies might take a fresh look at old producing areas with new development or exploratory drilling. Or they will apply new drilling or completion techniques, something that wasn’t available 20 or 30 years ago.

Consider the massive shale plays that have awakened the American oil patch during the past decade or so, including the Barnett and Eagle Ford shales in Texas, the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and Montana, and the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. In many places, numerous holes penetrated these formations years ago, but the wells at that time were not completed with modern hydraulic fracturing or horizontal drilling practices. Who knows how many more oil or gas wells await discovery?

A few words here about confidentiality may be in order. If you spent several million dollars on a well, especially in a remote area, would you want to share your well data right away? Of course not. As a result, confidentiality is still an issue for E&P companies.

A number of state oil and gas regulatory agencies acknowledge this by allowing operators in their states to hold data confidential for a year or more. Many wells are classified as “tight holes,” and their well information is not released to the public. This is especially true for exploratory wells, stepouts or isolated wildcats. Even in the digital age, the information from tight holes must be protected.

As there are with many professions, there are also oil scout associations. Chartered in 1924, the International Oil Scouts Association (IOSA) is a loose federation of a number of other district scouting associations, including the Houston Oil Scouts, the South Louisiana Oil Scouts, the Ark-La-Tex Oil Scouts and the Offshore Oil Scouts Association.

The main mission of these chapters is to promote scouting and the petroleum industry, and to share information among its members. For more information about the IOSA, visit their home page at www.oilscouts.com.