Railroad Commission completed gas records for the Barnett Shale

As part of an ongoing process to digitize and index the records for more than one million oil and gas wells drilled in Texas since 1919, the Railroad Commission recently completed imaging all the gas records for the Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth area.

This imaging is part of a three-phase process the Railroad Commission is undertaking over the next year to allow the public to research individual well records online "instead of driving to Austin or mailing a research request," said Commissioner Michael L. Williams.

"The Commission has about 132 million well records, and as we make progress with placing the most recent records online during the year, researchers will be able to sit down at their computer and do their own research with a click of a keyboard, pulling up results within minutes instead of hours or weeks," said Railroad Commission Chairman Elizabeth Ames Jones.

Well records can be searched by going to the Commission's website at: www.rrc.state.tx.us under "information resources," "search oil and gas records."