West Virginia Office of Oil and Gas

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) says its Office of Oil and Gas "is responsible for monitoring and regulating all actions related to the exploration, drilling, storage and production of oil and natural gas." WVDEP says the office maintains records on over 55,000 active and 12,000 inactive oil and gas wells, and manages the state's abandoned well plugging and reclamation program.

In a Phase I ESA

ASTM E1527-21 does not name state oil and gas well records among its standard record sources. On a West Virginia property they answer a plain question: is there a well, a pit or an injection well on or near the site, and what became of it. Five details shape the search.

• The drilling is older than the numbering. WVDEP says every oil and gas well permitted in West Virginia since 1929 has been issued an API number. It also says oil and gas extraction in the state dates back to the mid-19th century, that thousands of wells were drilled over more than 150 years, and that many were abandoned without being properly plugged and now pose a potential environmental or safety threat. Do not treat a search by number as a complete search for old wells; walk the site and ask the owner.
• The data are what operators reported. WVDEP says its oil and gas data originate from information reported by operators, and that it does not guarantee their accuracy, precision or completeness.
• Abandoned wells are being plugged. WVDEP says its plugging program was responsible for plugging 220 wells in 2023 across all funding sources, up from only a couple of wells on average in prior years. Where a property has an old well, ask whether it was plugged and under which program.
• Pits and impoundments have their own paper. WVDEP says the Natural Gas Horizontal Well Control Act mandated a process for the registration and approval of centralized natural gas drilling impoundments and pits. Its forms include a notification of construction, an as-built form, an annual certification and a modification or closure form.
• Injection wells are searched here too. The office oversees Class II and Class III wells. See the Underground Injection Control Program page.

Reading an API number

WVDEP says the API number is required to be posted on every oil and gas well, and that it has standardized on the full 10-digit number. In its example, 47-001-00001:

Older records write the same number in other ways. WVDEP says the state code was often dropped, some systems dropped the leading zero of the county code, and hyphens come and go. Try each form when a search fails.

Where to look a site up

• Search for Oil and Gas Wells, which WVDEP says also gives production data for individual wells.
• Search for Oil and Gas Permits.
• Enforcement Search.
• The office's Map Search, and for the plugging program a Mapping Tool.
• The office is at 304-926-0499 and depoogep@wv.gov. WVDEP asks users to report errors in the data.

Getting the file

The Office of Oil and Gas page links the agency's Request Information page for a Freedom of Information Act request, which can also be emailed to depfoia@wv.gov. Give the full API number. See the Application Enhancer page.

Sources

West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection pages, read October 7, 2026, no modified date shown:

• Office of Oil and Gas
• Database Information
• Search Oil and Gas Database
• API Well Number Explanation
• Abandoned Well Plugging
• Pits and Impoundments. The last entry in its update log is dated 08/19/2014.
• Groundwater/UIC Program
• Data Center
• Program Directory
• Request Information