W. Va. Geologic and Economic Survey site with plats and completion reports for wells on line
Go here to find the plat maps that the driller files with the well permit application, and the completion reports that the driller files after the well has been fraced and goes into production. (Occasionally production will show up on the WVGES’s page for the well which can be located through its Pipeline web site, before the completion report is filed.)
The plat map can be difficult to interpret exactly, but has good information about where the well is located.
The completion report will tell a lot about how deep the well was drilled, to what formation, how much cement was used, how much gas it produced, and sometimes what formations were penetrated at what depth to get to the target formation.
You have to know the county and the API number for the well to use this site. The API number is like the well’s social security number. The first three (or some times two) numbers will be 047 (or just 47) for West Virginia. The next three numbers (always starting with a “0”) will indicate the county, and the last 5 numbers (there have to be 5 numbers, so if you don’t have 5, sometimes you have to add “0’s” in front) indicate the individual well in the county. The API number is required to be on the well somewhere. Also you can use the State Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Oil and Gas data base web page to search for the well using the operator or farm(lease) name etc, but this is not easy. If you are a royalty owner, ask the entity paying the royalty for the number.
