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Wellbore H-15 Inactive Well Tests

Queryable Fixed-width

H-15 tests on inactive wells: who tested, when, and what the status was.

Get the data

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.

Preview the first 100 rows

What this is

Record type 12. The H-15 is the fluid-level or pressure test an operator must run on a well that has been inactive for twelve months. Each row records the test date, the reporting operator, the district, field and lease, the status and the base of usable water.

A million H-15 records is the public inactive-well file.

What you can do with it

Find wells that have been inactive long enough to require testing, see which operators are testing on time, and combine with the plugging records to identify orphan-well risk.

Gotchas

The next-test year and month are two separate columns, not a date.

An H-15 record existing means the well was inactive, which is exactly the population most people mean by 'idle wells' — but a missing record does not prove the well is producing.

Record layout

17 columns. Byte positions are 1-based and come from the RRC record layout, so you can check our decoding against the original file yourself.

wb_h15_reports 17 columns

# Column Type Bytes RRC name Meaning Lookup
1 api_county key join text — — The three-digit county component of the API number. For offshore wells this is the nearest onshore county, not the well's actual location. —
2 api_unique key join text — — The five-digit well component of the API number. Unique only in combination with the county code. —
3 h15_date_key key text 3-10 WB-H15-DATE-KEY Key of the H-15 filing, CCYYMMDD. —
4 h15_status text 11 WB-H15-STATUS Where the bore stands against its H-15 test requirement. H-15 inactive well test status
5 h15_operator join text 12-17 WB-H15-OPERATOR Operator number that filed the H-15. —
6 h15_next_test_ccyy text 18-21 WB-H15-NEXT-TEST-CCYY Year the next H-15 test is due. —
7 h15_next_test_mm text 22-23 WB-H15-NEXT-TEST-MM Month the next H-15 test is due. —
8 h15_district text 24-25 WB-H15-DISTRICT District the bore is in. —
9 h15_field join text 26-33 WB-H15-FIELD Field the bore is in. —
10 h15_oil_gas_code text 44 WB-H15-OIL-GAS-CODE 'O' or 'G' — which schedule the tested completion sits on. Oil or gas schedule
11 h15_lease_nbr text 45-49 WB-H15-LEASE-NBR Lease number of the tested completion. —
12 h15_well_nbr text 50-55 WB-H15-WELL-NBR Well number of the tested completion. —
13 h15_test_date date — — Date of the H-15 test. —
14 h15_base_usable_water integer measured in ft 70-75 WB-H15-BASE-USABLE-WATER Depth to the base of usable-quality water, feet. —
15 h15_type_test_flag text 76 WB-H15-TYPE-TEST-FLAG F for a fluid-level test, M for a mechanical-integrity test. —
16 h15_status_date date — — Date the current H-15 status was assigned. —
17 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. —

Code lookups used here

Every coded column in this dataset resolves to a real lookup table, so a well code of G can be read as what it actually means.

H-15 inactive well test status 9 values

Read by h15_status

Where a 25-year-plus inactive wellbore stands against its H-15 fluid-level or mechanical-integrity test requirement.

CodeMeans
A Approved H-15 filed was approved.
C Compliant Wellbore status has changed and the bore is now compliant.
D Delinquent H-15 is delinquent.
N Filed, not approved H-15 was filed but not approved.
P Pending H-15 approval is pending.
W W-3A extension A W-3A plugging extension was filed for the wellbore.
U UIC H-5 violation UIC H-5 violation.
E No-test project extension H-15 no test project extension.
X W-1X denied Denied W-1X application due to an invalid H-5 test.

Source: RRC manual WBA091, data-item note 'Valid conditions for WB-H15-STATUS'

Oil or gas schedule 2 values

Read by h15_oil_gas_code

Which schedule a lease is carried on. This is not decoration: an oil lease number and a gas lease number can be the same digits and mean different leases, so a lease key is only unique with this code and the district in it.

CodeMeans
O Oil Carried on the oil proration schedule; lease numbers are oil lease numbers.
G Gas Carried on the gas proration schedule; lease numbers are gas well IDs.

Source: PDQ Dump user manual; values confirmed as the complete distinct set in texas.pdq_og_lease_cycle.oil_gas_code

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.

Wellbore H-15 Inactive Well Tests joins to Full Wellbore Database (ASCII) on API county and API unique — many rows here share a single row there.

its H-15 inactive well tests

Present where the well has been inactive long enough to require testing. Keyed on the API county and unique number, which is how every record type in WBA091 hangs off its root record.

full-wellbore-ascii.api_county = wellbore-h15-reports.api_county AND full-wellbore-ascii.api_unique = wellbore-h15-reports.api_unique

Where this comes from

Published by
Texas Railroad Commission — the original page
Original format
Fixed-width Columns are byte ranges with no separators, described only in a scanned record layout.
Update cadence
Updated once a week (Weekly, with the wellbore database.)
RRC download link
GoAnywhere MFT
Record layout manual
Our table
texas.wb_h15_reports

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.

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