Where the data comes from

The source

Under Ohio Revised Code 1509.28 an operator may ask the Chief of the Division to order a tract of land operated as one unit. Each application, hearing notice, transcript and Chief's order is posted by ODNR. Applications filed from 2023 onward follow a set template: a tract list of every mineral owner (Exhibit A), a shapefile of the unit boundary, the planned wells and an economics table sworn to by the operator.

BasinDesk reads those filings and keeps a link to the ODNR original beside every one of them. Nothing here comes from a private or licensed database.

What is covered today

Filings before 2023 are scanned PDFs with no shapefile and no spreadsheet, so older units have a timeline and links but not always a map, wells or economics. Coverage grows as more documents are read.

How to read the status

• Application pending An application is on the docket, no hearing date is ahead and no Chief's order is listed.
• Hearing scheduled A hearing date is still ahead.
• Approved A Chief's order for the unit is on the docket.

The operator's economics

The figures on a unit page under "Economics, as filed by the operator" are the operator's own numbers from the application: estimated recovery, capital and operating costs, undiscounted value, PV0 and PV10. They are read from the filing by machine, so each unit page links the original and flags figures that fail a consistency check. They are the operator's claims to the state. They are not an appraisal and not a forecast by BasinDesk.

Projected cash flow

Pick a parcel on a unit's map and the panel shows a projected cash flow for it, year by year. It is arithmetic on the operator's own filed totals and nothing else, with a low case and a high case beside it to show some variability. It is AI generated, it is not a forecast by BasinDesk, and it could be wildly inaccurate. Do not use it to make an investment decision; for that, talk to a financial advisor working with a petroleum engineer (Terms, section 3.10).

• The recovery. The operator files one figure for the whole unit: its estimated gross recovery, in gas equivalent. It files no yearly schedule, no oil and gas split, no prices and no start date.
• The years. That recovery is spread over 30 production years (Year 1, Year 2 and so on, counted from first production, never calendar years) by a standard decline curve: most in the first years, less each year after. The steepness is chosen so that discounting the curve at 10 percent gives back the operator's own PV10. Where a unit's figures do not allow that, the curve takes the typical (median) steepness of the units that do, and the page says so. Every planned well is treated as starting together in Year 1.
• The price. All of it is priced as gas, held flat at the average of the last ten full years of the Henry Hub annual spot price published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The operator's own value of the same recovery, at prices it does not state, is shown beside it for comparison.
• The deductions. 15 percent off the revenue: an assumed average, not a measured one. We hold no revenue statements for these units.
• The share. A parcel's share of the unit is the tract participation the Exhibit A gives the owner rows on it; a row on several parcels is split by the acres of each inside the unit. Where the factors of a filing add to more than 100 percent (rows filed twice) they are scaled down to it; where they add to less they are shown as filed; where they cover less than half of the unit nothing is projected. The page says which. Owner rows appear only where the owner list is open.
• The royalty. The unit's royalty rate unless you pick another. The lease, not this page, sets the real rate; an unleased owner in a unit is shown the royalty share only. Before taxes.
• The low and high cases. Two more layers on the same graph, made by fixed rules from the same totals and the same curve. Both start from the operator's recovery, but where its recovery per foot of lateral is higher than three quarters of the filings we hold, they use that level instead of its own figure. The low case, close to a worst case, takes 60 percent of that recovery at the lowest of the ten yearly gas prices, less 20 percent deductions. The high case takes all of it at the highest of the ten yearly prices, less 10 percent. They are illustrations, not predictions, and results can fall outside them.
• The acknowledgment. Before the graph is shown you are asked to agree that it is AI generated, may be wildly inaccurate and is not for investment decisions. We record each agreement with your account (if you are signed in), your network address, your browser and the time, and ask again every 14 days or whenever that wording changes.

Production so far, and the nearest producing well

Where a unit's wells are already producing, its page shows what they have reported so far and no projection. We do not project the future of a producing unit yet (Terms, section 3.11).

• The source. The quarterly production statements that well owners file with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, for horizontal wells: oil, gas and days, by well and by quarter. They are public. The state does not guarantee them and neither do we. Oil includes condensate. Statements by quarter begin in 2013: what a well produced before that is not counted, and the page says so on each well it affects.
• Which wells belong to a unit. A well is tied to a unit when most of the line the state maps for it lies inside the unit's outline, or when the unit's filing names its number. A well can be tied to the wrong unit, and a unit with no outline may show no wells.
• Wells that were there first. A unit is often filed over ground where older wells already produce. Those wells are shown apart, under "Wells already producing inside this unit". The unit still gets its projection, because the operator's estimate is for the wells it plans, and it is never set against the older ones.
• The operator's estimate against it. Where the operator filed an estimated recovery, the page sets it beside what has been reported: how far along the wells are, where the operator's own curve would be by now, and what would be left by that estimate. When only some of the planned wells produce, the estimate is scaled to the length of the wells that do. This is subtraction on the operator's figure. It is not a reserve estimate of ours.
• The nearest producing wells. A unit that is not producing shows up to three of the nearest horizontal wells of the same formation: what each has reported for each 1,000 feet of lateral over its own first full years, set as a share of the operator's projection for the unit at the same age where one was filed. They are chosen by distance, not by a geologist or an engineer. Nearby wells are not a forecast.
• Gas-equivalent. One barrel of oil counts as 6 Mcf of gas.

Ownership

Each application carries Exhibit A: the operator's list of every mineral owner in the unit, with the address the operator used for notice, the tract, the acreage and whether the interest is leased. It is a public filing. BasinDesk keeps it apart from everything else: the map and the lists never show an owner, and a unit page shows owners (on its parcel map) only where the unit's owner list is open to your organization. A search by name says only which units list a matching name. The rows themselves are on the unit's own owner page, which opens when the unit is open to your organization: covered by its subscription, or added as a single unit. They are the operator's list as filed, which can be out of date.

Well lines on the maps

A few applications ship the planned laterals as map files; those are drawn as filed. For other units the lines are the horizontal wells as the Ohio Department of Natural Resources draws them on its own public oil and gas well map, tied to a unit only when a well named in the unit's filings has exactly the name of one ODNR well and its line lies at the unit. A well that is not yet on ODNR's map has no line here: BasinDesk never draws a line from a name and a length. 151 units carry ODNR lines (281 wells), from ODNR's map as of 2026-11-12.

Oil and gas wells on the maps

The Wells layer of the maps is the public oil and gas well map of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management, and nothing else. It is free to everyone. It shows wells at three stages, each in its own color: a well ODNR lists as producing, a well it lists as being drilled or as drilled and not producing yet, and a well it lists as permitted and not drilled yet. Plugged wells, dry holes, expired permits, orphan wells, wells of unknown status, and storage, injection, water and observation wells are left out. ODNR has no shut-in status: a well it lists as producing is shown even if it is idle. A well's name, API number, operator and status are ODNR's own words. Today the layer holds 61,211 wells (238 permitted, 275 drilling or drilled, 60,698 producing; 4,001 of them Utica or Marcellus shale wells), from ODNR's map as of 2026-11-13. The lines are the paths of the horizontal wells as ODNR's map draws them, from the surface location to the end of the lateral, each in the color of its well: 4,267 lines, from ODNR's map as of 2026-11-12. A horizontal well that is plugged or otherwise left out of the layer has no line here.

Parcel shapes

A unit page draws the parcels its Exhibit A lists. The parcel NUMBER is the operator's, from the filing. The SHAPE is the public parcel map of the county the parcel is in, published by the county itself (or, where a county publishes none, the State of Ohio's statewide layer). BasinDesk takes the number, the county and the shape from those maps and nothing else: no owner, no mailing address and no valuation comes from a county's tax roll. The acres inside and outside a unit are measured from the shape against the unit boundary filed with the application. County parcel maps are drawn for tax purposes and are not surveys, so a measure can differ from the operator's own figure; where the filing gives one, both are shown.

How months are counted

The monthly update and the month filters use the day a filing was first seen on the ODNR docket. For filings that were already there when the collection started in July 2026, the month is the month of the hearing.