Mapped Well Paths
Queryable Shapefile
Which Texas wells are deviated, and how long the path is.
Get the data
Heads up on Original: the Commission does not publish this table on its own. It publishes Well Layers by County, which this was parsed out of — so Original gets you that whole file, not just this table. Every other format is this table alone.
Free. You will be asked to confirm an email address before the files are built — that is the only gate, and it is there so we can tell you when a large export is ready.
What this is
187,229 wells whose surface hole and bottom hole are joined by a mapped path -- the deviated and horizontal wells. Each row names both ends and the length of the arc between them.
The path's geometry is a polyline and lives only in the shapefile itself, which is mirrored on this site under Well Layers by County. What is here is the attribute table: which wells have a path, which surface goes with which bottom, and how long the arc is. That is enough to find every horizontal well in a county without opening a GIS package.
What you can do with it
Identify the horizontal wells in an area, rank them by lateral length, or get the surface/bottom pairing for a set of wells in one query.
Gotchas
shape_len is the length of the mapped ARC in the shapefile's own units on NAD27 degrees, not a measured depth and not feet. Use it to compare wells with each other, not as a survey figure.
A well with no row here is not necessarily vertical -- it is a well RRC has not mapped a path for. 187,183 of these rows find their surface hole and 187,206 find their bottom hole.
Record layout
8 columns.
gis_well_path
8 columns
| # | Column | Type | RRC name | Meaning | Lookup |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
county_code
|
text | — | The three-digit county code, taken from the name of the package this row came out of -- well001s.dbf is county 001. 'FED' for the federal offshore bundle, which is a real part of the statewide layer: merging only the numeric counties silently drops every well in federal waters and still looks like a complete Texas layer. | — |
| 2 |
bottom_id
|
bigint | — | The bottom hole this path ends at, joining to texas.gis_well_bottom. 187,206 of the 187,229 paths resolve. | — |
| 3 |
surface_id
|
bigint | — | The surface hole this path starts from, joining to texas.gis_well_surface. 187,183 of the 187,229 paths resolve. | — |
| 4 |
api10
|
text | — | NOT a zero-padded API. It is the eight-digit API with the SIDETRACK code appended -- '00132873H1' is API 00132873, sidetrack H1 -- so it is eight characters on a well with no sidetrack and ten on one that has. Join on `api` unless you specifically want to tell sidetracks apart; joining on this one silently drops every well that has no sidetrack code, or matches nothing at all, depending on which side you start. | — |
| 5 |
api
|
text | — | The eight-digit API number of the well this path belongs to. A well with no row in this table is not necessarily vertical -- it is a well RRC has not mapped a path for. | — |
| 6 |
stcode
|
text | — | The sidetrack code, two characters, blank on a well with no sidetrack. This is the suffix that api10 appends. | — |
| 7 |
shape_len
|
double precision | — | The length of the mapped ARC, in the shapefile's own units on NAD27 degrees. Not a measured depth and not feet. It is comparable between wells -- a longer arc is a longer lateral -- and is not a survey figure; the survey is on the W-2 and the directional survey filings. | — |
| 8 |
ingested_at
|
timestamptz | — | When the upstream pipeline last wrote this row. Not an RRC field — it is EZRRC's provenance stamp, and it is what the freshness badge is measured against. | — |
What this joins to
The Railroad Commission never states these keys anywhere in the files. They are the reason the data is hard to use, so here they are with the exact columns on both sides.
Mapped Well Paths joins to Mapped Well Locations (Bottom Hole) on Bottom ID — many rows here share a single row there.
ends at the bottom hole
187,206 of the 187,229 mapped paths find their bottom hole. Integers on both sides. With the surface edge above, this is what pairs the two ends of a deviated well when a surface hole has more than one bottom and the pairing is not obvious.
mapped-well-paths.bottom_id = mapped-well-bottom-holes.bottom_id
Mapped Well Paths joins to Mapped Well Locations (Surface) on Surface ID — many rows here share a single row there.
runs from the surface hole
187,183 of the 187,229 mapped paths find their surface hole. Integers on both sides. A well with no row in the path table is not necessarily vertical; it is a well RRC has not mapped a path for.
mapped-well-paths.surface_id = mapped-well-surface-locations.surface_id
Where this comes from
- Published by
- Texas Railroad Commission — the original page
- Original format
- Shapefile ArcView shapefile — several files that must be kept together.
- RRC publishes
- Updated twice a week (Twice a week, with the county shapefile packages.)
- RRC download link
- GoAnywhere MFT
- Record layout manual
- Our table
texas.gis_well_path
EZRRC is an independent mirror of public-domain data published by the Texas Railroad Commission. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the RRC. For any legal or regulatory purpose, verify against the official RRC release.