Find a Louisiana well, unit and operator on SONRIS

Where SONRIS lives

SONRIS is at sonris.com and is run by the Louisiana Department of Conservation and Energy. The Department's research guide starts every path at the SONRIS home page and names two doors. The SONRIS Data Portal is where data queries run. Document Access holds imaged documents.

The Department's SONRIS Guides page lists PDF tutorials for several of the searches below and gives 225-342-0510 and info@la.gov for SONRIS questions.

1Step 1, find the wells on the tract

The Department's guide says to key in any Section, Township, Range, or Township and Range, then execute. Its example is Township 16S, Range 06E. The Department's glossary describes a township in this system as a three-character code, two digits followed by N or S, and a range as two digits followed by E or W. The guide's example keys them as 16S and 06E.

The results list a Well Serial Num and a Well Name for each well. The serial number opens an interactive report, the Well Profile in step 2. The well name opens a one-page summary. Scrolling right, the Latitude column links to the well's location in SONRIS GIS. The guide says the list is commonly sorted by Section, then Well Serial Num.

Look at the neighboring sections too. The Mineral Code's unit rules (R.S. 31:33 and 31:37) both contemplate operations or a unit well on land other than the tract itself.

2Step 2, read the serial number

The Department's glossary defines a well serial number as a permanent identification number assigned to a well upon approval of the application for (or to renew) a permit to drill. The number opens the Well Profile. These are the parts of it the Department's guides describe:

Well Serial Num

Links to the imaged well file.

Well Name

Opens a one-page summary.

Field ID

Links to the Field Blackbooks.

API Num

Links to other well serial numbers with the same API number.

Received Date (View GIS)

Links to the well's location in SONRIS GIS.

LUW Association

Shows the LUW code history for the serial number. The guide calls the LUW code the production reporting code.

Oil and Gas Production Information

Shows monthly production information as reported by the operator.

History

Shows the well serial number history records.

Results can be exported to CSV, HTM or Excel from Actions > Download, per the Department's Export Data guide.

The well file can also be reached through Document Access. Under Subject choose Permitting, then Well Permit to Drill/Amend, key the Well Serial Number, check "Get associated documents" and search.

How much of the file is imaged depends on its age. The research guide says all engineering and approved permit documents received since 2000 have been imaged by serial number, and most documents received before 2000 are also indexed as "Well File Historic." Older well files may have documents that are not imaged, available on microfiche or reel at the LaSalle Building, 9th floor, or as paper copies at the district office where the well is located.

3Step 3, find the operator

The guides give two routes. On Well Information Search, type part of an operator name into the Operator Name parameter and press enter, choose the operator, then execute. The results are all the wells that company holds as latest operator of record. Or find the Operator ID in the Well Profile results for the well you already have.

In the Well Profile query, a row with Flagged Operator = Yes reflects that the operator has significant outstanding compliance issues. Selecting the Operator ID opens the Organization Search data, and its Red Flags region lists records, where a record with no End Date reflects an outstanding compliance issue. That is the regulator's compliance flag. It is not a statement about who owns a tract or who holds a lease.

The operator on a SONRIS screen is the operator the state has of record for the well. Recorded leases are found with the parish clerk, and the records page covers reading those books.

4Step 4, find the unit order

Run the index with no parameters to see the whole dataset, then use the column headers to filter, or key in search parameters. The Order Number field links to Document Access, which holds the field order and, if scanned, the hearing docket and hearing exhibit.

To go straight to an order, use Document Access instead. Under Subject choose Regulatory, then Field Order, key the order number in the Ref Num field, check "Get associated documents" and search. The wildcard % finds a series of orders.

The research guide describes a field order as an order issued by the Department for a specific field, resulting from a hearing or an administrative application. Orders reflect unitization matters and exceptions to Title 43 (Natural Resources) of the Louisiana Administrative Code, and authorize other activities including commingling and the downhole configuration of a wellbore. The guide says all orders have been imaged by order number.

Dockets are the hearing transcripts and exhibits for unitization matters and exceptions. The guide says most dockets have not been imaged. They can be reviewed at the LaSalle Building, 9th floor, and each district office (Lafayette, Monroe and Shreveport) keeps copies of the dockets for its district.

Why the unit exists

R.S. 30:9(B) says that for the prevention of waste and to avoid the drilling of unnecessary wells, the secretary shall establish a drilling unit or units for each pool, with an exception for pools developed before July 31, 1940 where using a drilling unit is impracticable or unreasonable at the present stage of development. A drilling unit means the maximum area which may be efficiently and economically drained by the well or wells designated to serve it.

Where owners of separate tracts in a unit have not agreed by contract to pool, R.S. 30:10(A)(2) has the secretary require it if he finds it necessary to prevent waste or avoid drilling unnecessary wells. Pooling orders are made after notice and hearing, and the production allocated to each tract is treated as if it had been produced from that tract by a well drilled on it.

5Step 5, find the unit survey plat

Key the Field Code and leave "Get associated documents" unchecked, then search. The guide says there is also an LUW code search option, but not all survey plats have been indexed with the LUW. It says most survey plats received have been imaged and indexed by field order, and that some may have been missed and are available for public review at the LaSalle Building, 9th floor. Imaged plats also come up through the Field Order search in step 4.

The guide describes a unit survey plat as a plat depicting mineral ownership of the pooled unit, required only for units that produced. The Department's rule on survey plats, La. Admin. Code tit. 43, pt. XIX, § 4103, says what the plat must carry:

• The geologically significant wells, located on the ground by the Lambert Plane Coordinate System or other recognized control, with the distance of each from the unit boundary line it controls (§ 4103(A)).
• The affected tracts, identified "by the names of the fee and lease owners, based on the best available information" (§ 4103(A)(2)).
• An inset or attachment showing the number, name, acreage (or other basis of participation) and unit percentage participation of each tract (§ 4103(A)(2)).

The same section says each producing unit is to be surveyed and the plat submitted for approval within 90 days after the issuance date of the unit order, and that a unit not producing when created submits its plat within 90 days after production commences (§ 4103(F)(2)). The unit plat that goes with a notice, an application or a hearing is governed by § 4101, which uses the same "best available information" words for the owners' names.

For a subject tract, the inset or attachment is where its share of the unit is read. The owner names on the plat are based on the best available information when the plat was made, as the rules put it. They are not a title opinion.

What the records do and do not show

Why a landman cares

The ten-year clock on the home page turns on facts that live in these records. Three sections of the Mineral Code show which ones:

• R.S. 31:29. Good-faith operations for the discovery and production of minerals interrupt prescription of nonuse on a mineral servitude. Good faith means the operations were commenced with reasonable expectation of discovering and producing minerals in paying quantities at a particular point or depth, continued at the site chosen to that point or depth, and conducted so that they constitute a single operation although actual drilling or mining is not conducted at all times.
• R.S. 31:33. Operations on land other than that burdened by a servitude, as part of a conventional or compulsory unit that includes only part of the burdened land, if otherwise sufficient to interrupt prescription under Articles 29 through 32, interrupt prescription only as to the portion of the tract in the unit, and only if they are for the discovery and production of minerals from the unitized sand or sands.
• R.S. 31:37. Production from a unit embracing all or part of the burdened tract interrupts prescription, but if the unit well is on other land, the interruption extends only to the portion of the tract in the unit.

R.S. 31:75 lets parties agree expressly and in writing, in the act creating a servitude or otherwise, that an interruption from unit operations or production extends to the entire tract burdened by the servitude, regardless of the location of the well or whether all or only part of the tract is in the unit. So the servitude and any later writing matter too.

The well file is where the dates and depths for that test are usually read, as the questions on the home page say, and the field order and plat are where a unit and its tracts are read. Whether the facts in a given file, order and plat satisfy those sections is a call for the examiner.

Where SONRIS stops

SONRIS holds the state's well, order and unit records. Its own disclaimer says the information is for general informational purposes and should not be considered authoritative for site-specific or any other uses. Oil and gas leases, mineral sales and royalty deeds are recorded with the parish clerk. DeSoto Parish's clerk, for one, lists them among its conveyance records. Reading Louisiana conveyance and mortgage records covers that side.