See Chapter 9 of the West Virginia Surface Owner's Guide to Oil and Gas

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The link at the bottom of this page will take you to the web page where you can get a hard copy (recommended) or PDF copy of the Guide.

We have one additional piece of advice since the publication of the Guide. You can use two state web sites to try to find if there are any wells near you and what their condition is. To find if there are wells on the property you propose to buy, go to the web site of the West Virginia Office of Oil and Gas and on the left under “Database Information”, go to “Oil and Gas Map Search”. Then click and drag a box around where the property is that you intend to buy. Keep doing this until you get well numbers showing on the map. The known gas wells in your area will show by number. (There could be unknown wells in your area if there was drilling there prior to 1929. If you know of any that are not on the map, and you might try looking on the ground yourself, you should report those to the State Office of Oil and Gas.) To find out what information is available about that well on line, you can then use the numbers for the wells on that map elsewhere on the OOG data base web site (wells listed as “abandoned” and with no “operator” are the most dangerous) and on the West Virginia Geological Survey “pipeline” web site.

Chapter 9 of the West Virginia Surface Owner’s Guide to Oil and Gas