The OCC website — accessible at oklahoma.gov/occ — is the public-facing hub for everything the Oklahoma Corporation Commission regulates. For mineral owners, the Oil and Gas Conservation Division section is where the action is. But the site isn’t built for mineral owners. It’s built for operators, regulators, and attorneys. The information you need is all there; the challenge is knowing which of the half-dozen different databases to use, and how to search each one.
One important exception before you start: minerals in Osage County are not regulated by the OCC. The Osage Nation retained its mineral estate, and it is administered federally through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. If your interests are in Osage County, the tools in this guide will not show your wells — that is not an error, and you are not searching wrong. (Not to be confused with the Osage formation, a geological target that appears across several Oklahoma counties.)
This guide walks through each tool that matters for mineral owners, explains what it does, and shows you step by step how to use it to find information about your sections. We’ll cover how to look up wells, find drilling permits, search for spacing and pooling orders, access scanned documents, and check production data — all using free, publicly available OCC databases.
Quick Reference: Which Tool Does What
Before diving into the details, here’s a quick map of the OCC’s online tools and what each one is best for. The OCC has accumulated multiple overlapping systems over the years, and knowing which one to use for a given task saves a lot of time.
| Tool | Best For | URL |
|---|---|---|
| Oil & Gas Well Records Search | Looking up well details by legal description, API number, or operator | OCC Well Records Search |
| Well Data Finder | Visual/map-based well search using GIS | OCC Well Data Finder |
| Case Document Search | Spacing, pooling, and other CD cases filed after March 2022 | public.occ.ok.gov/WebLink |
| Case Processing | Spacing, pooling, and other CD cases filed before March 2022 | case.occ.ok.gov |
| Imaged Documents Directory | Scanned documents: Form 1000s, 1002As, well logs, orders | OCC Imaged Documents Directory |
| RBDMS Data Explorer | Advanced search, reports, and data export | Oil & Gas Division page |
| Hearing Dockets | Upcoming hearing schedules for CD cases | oklahoma.gov/occ (Court Dockets) |
The OCC launched its Electronic Case Filing (ECF) system on March 21, 2022. This is the critical date to remember. Cases filed after that date live in ECF. Cases filed before that date live in the older Case Processing system and the Imaging system. If you’re searching for a case and can’t find it, make sure you’re looking in the right system based on when it was filed.
Oil & Gas Well Records Search
The OCC’s original Well Browse Database at wellbrowse.occ.ok.gov has been decommissioned. The replacement is the Oil & Gas Well Records Search through the OCC Imaging portal, plus the Well Data Finder for map-based searching. The instructions below use the current system.
The Oil & Gas Well Records Search is where you read a well’s paperwork. It is a document-image search: you tell it which form you want and which well, and it hands back the scanned OCC form. It is not a well database — there is no list of wells, no production figures, no status column, and no export.
Its fields are Form Number / Type, API Number, Well Name, Operator Number, Legal Location, Effective/Approved Date, Scan Date, and District. Note what is missing: there are no separate section, township and range boxes, and no operator-name search. Legal Location is a single box in a packed format — Section 7, Township 11 North, Range 10 East is typed 0711N10E. So to work out which wells sit on your section, use the map or table tools below first, then come back here to read their documents.
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- Go to the OCC Well Records Search
- Use the search fields to enter your Section, Township, and Range, or search by API number or operator name
- Click Search
- Browse the results list — click any well to see its full record, including permits, completions, production data, and scanned documents
What You’ll Find
Permit status, completion data, operator info, formation, total depth, production volumes, bottom hole location, well status.
Tips
The API Number Suffix tracks multiple events on the same well — the highest suffix is the current record. Results can be exported to CSV.
Oklahoma uses the Section-Township-Range system for legal descriptions. A section is a one-square-mile area (640 acres). Your section number, township, and range are the keys that unlock everything on the OCC website. You’ll find them on your lease, your division order, or your royalty check stub. If you only have a street address for your surface property, you can use the county assessor’s website to look up the legal description.
Well Data Finder (GIS Map)
The Well Data Finder is the OCC’s map-based well search tool, built on ArcGIS. Instead of entering search criteria into a form, you navigate a map and see wells plotted as points on the landscape. This is particularly useful when you want to see the spatial relationship between wells — for instance, understanding which wells have laterals crossing your section, or seeing how dense the drilling pattern is in your area.
You can search by well name, API number, operator, or legal location. Clicking a well point on the map brings up its basic information and links to detailed records. Section boundaries are already drawn for you — the layer is named STR, not “section grid,” and it is switched on by default.
- Go to the OCC Well Data Finder (or navigate to OCC website → Oil & Gas Division → GIS Data and Maps)
- Use the search bar or zoom/pan to navigate to your area
- Click individual well points to view details and follow links to full records
Best For
Visualizing well patterns, seeing horizontal lateral paths, understanding spatial relationships between wells and your section.
Complements
Use Well Data Finder to identify wells visually, then switch to the Well Records Search for detailed data on specific wells.
Electronic Case Filing (ECF)
This is where you find the filings that matter most: spacing applications, pooling orders, increased density applications, and other Conservation Docket (CD) cases. When an operator files to space your section, pool your interests, or drill additional wells, the resulting documents land here.
One caution before you start. The OCC’s Electronic Case Filing system at ecf.public.occ.ok.gov is the platform operators and attorneys file through, and it requires an account — the public cannot search it. The route for mineral owners is the OCC’s public document portal, which needs no account and no payment. It signs you in as a guest automatically, so ignore the “Sign Out” link in the corner.
The portal splits case documents at 21 March 2022, and the two sides work differently. You can tell which side you are on from the case number: CD2026-001238 — four-digit year, dash, six digits — is a modern case, while 200102075 — year run together with a sequence, no dash — is an older one.
Cases filed after 21 March 2022:
- Go to public.occ.ok.gov/WebLink and click Imaged Case Documents filed after 3/21/2022
- If you have the case number, enter it in Case Number — but drop the CD prefix. Type 2026-001238, not CD2026-001238. The prefixed version returns nothing and shows no error
- No case number? Set Case/Docket Type to CD-Conservation Docket, set Document Type to Final Order, type a relief type (Pooling, Spacing, Increased Density) into Relief Types, and enter a Filing Date range
- Click Submit
- There is no county or legal-description filter. County, section, township and range are printed in each result’s metadata, so search by relief type and a narrow date window — a week or two — then scan the list for your county
- Click the order number to open it. It opens in a new tab, and page 1 is the signature page; your election options and deadline are usually on pages 2 and 3
Cases filed before 21 March 2022: you need two systems, because the archive itself cannot be searched by location.
- Start at Case Processing Online: case.occ.ok.gov. This is the only OCC tool that will find an old case from a legal description
- Enter your Section, Township and Range. Township and Range must be exactly three characters including the direction letter — 13N, 17W. Plain 13 and 17 are rejected
- Leave the County dropdown alone. This sounds like bad advice and is not: on a test section that is unambiguously in Custer County, leaving County blank returned cases from 1988 onward, while selecting “20 – CUSTER” returned nothing at all. Leave Case Type blank too, for the same reason
- Click Search — on this form the button really is Search. (The well-records form is the one that says Submit.)
- In the results grid, click Link to LaserFiche on your case. It opens a new tab into the document portal, already filtered to that case’s imaged filings
- Documents are named case number, type, document ID — for example 200102075_ORDER_418882. The ORDER row also shows its Order Number in the metadata, and that number is your handle for tracing the chain back through older filings
Three honest limits on the archive side. Coverage starts around the late 1980s, so an older case may not appear even though its order genuinely exists — for those you need an order number read off another document. Wildcards do not work: searching CONTINENTAL* returns zero results while plain CONTINENTAL RESOURCES returns many. And after a failed search the grid still displays the previous search’s results, so check that what you are reading is what you asked for.
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Key Relief Types for Mineral Owners
Spacing, Pooling, Increased Density, Location Exception, Multiunit Horizontal Well, Unitization.
Document Access
Click into any case, then use the Docket tab to see all filed documents. Click “View” to open individual documents as PDFs.
The case-document search for filings after 21 March 2022 has no county or legal-description filter. It does print county, section, township and range in every result’s metadata, so the workable method is to filter by relief type and a narrow filing-date window, then scan the results for your section. For older filings the picture reverses: Case Processing Online does search by section, township and range, and it is the only OCC tool that will find a case from a legal description. Either way, multi-unit horizontal wells may reference several sections — check each section you own separately.
Case Processing (Pre-2022 Cases)
The legacy Case Processing system contains all OCC cases filed before March 21, 2022. If you’re researching the history of your section — such as when it was originally spaced, or what pooling terms were set for an existing well — this is where you’ll find those older records.
The search interface lets you filter by case type (select “CD” for Conservation Docket), party name, filing date, relief type (spacing, pooling, increased density, etc.), and legal description (section, township, range, and county).
- Go to the Case Processing search
- Select CD from the Case Type dropdown
- Optionally select a Relief Sought code — 50 for Spacing, 41 for Pooling, 29 for Increased Density, 107 for Multiunit Horizontal Well
- Enter your Section, Township, and Range, or enter a Party Name (the operator)
- Click Search
- Sort results by clicking column headers — click “Filing Date” to sort chronologically
- Click Link to Imaging for any case to view scanned documents
Coverage
All cases filed with the OCC prior to March 21, 2022, across all docket types.
Search Tips
Use wildcards (* or %) for partial name searches. Example: “Continental*” finds all Continental Resources cases.
OCC Imaging System
This is the OCC’s document archive — the scanned copies of Form 1000s (drilling permits), Form 1002As (completion reports), well logs, unitization orders, Commission orders, and other filed documents. When you need the original paper, not a database summary, this is where you go. The OCC’s old imaging address is gone; everything now runs through the directory page below, and none of it requires an account.
Well paperwork is the door most owners want, and there is no date cutoff behind it — a 2004 completion report and a 2026 one sit in the same place.
- Open the OCC Imaged Documents Directory. Think of this page as the lobby — it lists every category of scanned document the OCC keeps
- Click Oil and Gas Well Records Forms. The search that opens titles itself “Oil and Gas Well Records Search” — same tool, different name. You have not mis-clicked
- In Form Number / Type, pick the form you want: 1000 for a drilling permit, 1002A for a completion report, 1073 for a change of operator, 1014 for a plugging report
- Now identify the well. The surest way is API Number — all ten digits, no dashes, like 3503922088. Your API number is on your division order and your check stub. If you do not have it, use Legal Location, but mind the format: section, township and range run together, so Section 7, Township 11 North, Range 10 East is typed 0711N10E. Well Name also works, and a partial name is fine
- Click Submit. The button says Submit, not Search
- If several documents match you get a list; click one to open it. If only one matches, the system skips the list and drops you straight into the document — that is normal, not an error. Give the viewer a few seconds; it often reads “No preview available” before the scan appears
Key Document Types
Form 1000 (permit to drill), Form 1002A (completion report), well logs, production records, Commission orders, unitization documents.
Watch the dates
The date boxes are Effective/Approved Date and Scan Date, and neither is the date the operator mailed the form in. One test completion report was signed 22 October 2004 but is filed under 21 September 2004 — the date the well was actually completed — and was not scanned until March 2005. Search wide. Also, the Operator Number box wants the OCC’s numeric code, not a company name; if all you have is “Devon” or “Continental,” find the well on the map or table tools first.
RBDMS Data Explorer
The RBDMS Data Explorer is the OCC’s newest search tool, designed to provide more flexible access to the underlying well and entity data. It offers two search methods: a filter search where you build queries using specific criteria, and a full text search where you can type any combination of terms and the system returns matching records.
The Data Explorer also has a reporting feature that can generate reports for any chosen timeframe using publicly available OCC data. This is useful for mineral owners who want to see a summary of activity on their sections over a specific period — new permits, completions, and status changes.
You’ll find the RBDMS Data Explorer linked from the Oil & Gas Conservation Division page.
Best For
Flexible searching, generating date-ranged reports, exporting data for analysis.
Access
Oil & Gas Division page → RBDMS Data Explorer link. Help guide available on the same page.
Hearing Dockets
The OCC publishes its hearing dockets as searchable PDFs. These list upcoming hearings — including the spacing and pooling hearings that directly affect mineral owners. Each entry includes the case number, applicant name, legal description, type of relief sought, and hearing date and time.
This is important because a hearing is where decisions get made. If a spacing or pooling application is on the docket and you haven’t responded, attending the hearing (or ensuring your attorney does) is your last opportunity to be heard before the order is issued.
Find them on the OCC Court Dockets page, in the table headed HEARING DOCKETS. It holds six links: Monday through Friday for a single hearing day, and Weekly for the whole week. Do not confuse these with the DAILY SIGNING AGENDA sitting above that table — a signing agenda lists orders being signed, not hearings being held, so it will not tell you when your case is heard. Each PDF is searchable with Ctrl+F, so you can look for your section number or an operator name.
Best For
Tracking upcoming hearing dates for spacing, pooling, and increased density cases on your sections.
Format
Searchable PDFs posted to the OCC website. Use Ctrl+F to find your section or operator.
Common Tasks for Mineral Owners
Now that you know the tools, here’s how to accomplish the specific tasks that come up most often as a mineral owner.
Finding all wells on your section
Use the Well Data Finder map or the RBDMS Well Search table. Both find wells by location, and RBDMS Well Search adds operator, well-name and county filters over the full well grid, with a status column. Do not start at the Well Records Search for this — it has no section, township or range fields and returns scanned forms, not a list of wells.
On well status, ignore any single-letter shorthand. OCC uses two- to eight-character codes: AC is drilled and not plugged, PA is plugged and abandoned, TA is temporarily abandoned, OR is an orphan well. The Commission publishes the authoritative table on its Well Status Definitions page — worth a bookmark, because the codes appear without a decoder in every tool that shows them.
Checking if a new drilling permit has been filed
Drilling permits are Form 1000 filings. To see whether one has been filed on your section, look in the Well Data Finder or RBDMS Well Search — a permitted well appears there with a permit-stage status and no completion. For the document itself — proposed location, target depth, operator details — go to the Imaged Documents Directory, click Oil and Gas Well Records Forms, set Form Number / Type to 1000, and search by API number. If you are watching a section rather than a known well, search a wide date range: the date boxes are Effective/Approved Date and Scan Date, and neither is the date the permit was filed.
Finding a spacing or pooling order
These are Conservation Docket (CD) cases. For a breakdown of what each filing type means, see our guide to OCC filing types. Both routes run through the OCC’s public portal, and they are the two doors described earlier on this page. If the case was filed after March 21, 2022, use the portal’s case-document search and filter by relief type and a narrow filing-date range — there is no legal-description box, so read the county and section off each result. If it was filed before March 2022, start in Case Processing Online, which does search by section, township and range, then follow its Link to LaserFiche column to the scanned filings.
Reading a completion report
Completion reports (Form 1002A) tell you what the operator found when they drilled — formation name, total depth, perforated intervals, initial production rates, and completion method. They exist only as scanned images: there is no Completions button and no data view of them anywhere. Go to the Imaged Documents Directory, click Oil and Gas Well Records Forms, set Form Number / Type to 1002A, and search by the well’s API number. Remember the index files these under the well’s completion date, not the date the form was submitted.
Verifying who operates a well
For a specific well, use the RBDMS Well Search table or the Well Data Finder map — both show the current operator and its OCC operator number next to each well. There is no interactive operator directory to open on the OCC site. If what you want is the whole operator list as data, the Commission publishes an Operator Directory Listing as a downloadable spreadsheet, alongside purchaser and plugger lists, on its Oil and Gas Data Files page, under “Operator, Purchaser, and Plugger Related Information.”
Checking production data
Not from OCC well records — there is no production tab there. Oklahoma production is reported to the Oklahoma Tax Commission, by lease, under a Production Unit Number (PUN). Go to OkTAP, type PUN into the services search box, and open Public PUN Search. No account is needed. Search by legal description: the search-by-API option applies an input mask that mangles ten-digit API numbers and quietly returns wells from unrelated counties. The Production History tab holds a rolling twelve months only — for anything older, the OTC publishes a Production History Request Form. The OCC’s RBDMS Data Explorer is still worth knowing for the regulatory side of the record.
The most effective approach is to cross-reference. Start with the Well Data Finder or RBDMS Well Search to identify the wells on your section, then check the public portal’s case-document search for pending or recent spacing, pooling and increased-density cases, then pull the actual scanned documents through the Imaged Documents Directory. Those three steps give you the fullest picture of what is happening on your property.
Key OCC Forms for Mineral Owners
The OCC uses a numbered form system. Knowing which form numbers matter helps you search the Imaging system more efficiently and understand what you’re looking at when you find a document.
| Form | Name | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Form 1000 | Intent to Drill / Permit to Drill | Filed when an operator plans to drill. Shows proposed location, target depth, target formation, and operator details. This is the first concrete signal that a rig is coming to your section. |
| Form 1002A | Well Completion Report | Filed within 60 days of completing a well. Shows actual total depth, formation, perforated intervals, initial production test results, and completion method. |
| Form 1073 | Transfer of Operatorship | Filed when a well changes operators. If your royalty checks start coming from a different company, a 1073 should have been filed. |
| Form 1006B | Operator Agreement | The operator’s registration with the OCC. Contains the operator’s name, address, and contact information. |
| Form 1014 | Plugging Report | Filed when a well is plugged and abandoned. If a producing well on your section stops generating royalties, a plugging report will eventually be filed. |
What’s Changing: OKIES System
The OCC is transitioning to a new platform called the Oklahoma Information Exchange System (OKIES), which began phased implementation on June 30, 2025. OKIES is a form management platform that is replacing legacy systems — starting with the Form 1000 (Intent to Drill) process. Form 1000 submissions now route through OKIES rather than the older paper/fax workflow. Additional forms and processes are being added in phases.
For mineral owners, the key implication is that the way operators submit certain filings is changing. The underlying data — permits, completions, well records — will continue to be publicly accessible, but the systems through which you access them may look different over time.
Some legacy tools, including the original Well Browse Database, have already been retired or replaced. The supported tools going forward are the Oil & Gas Well Records Search, Well Data Finder, ECF, the Imaging system, RBDMS Data Explorer, and OKIES-backed workflows. If you can’t find a recent filing in one system, it’s worth checking whether it has moved to OKIES.
Limitations of the OCC Website
The OCC website is an invaluable resource, but it has real limitations that mineral owners should understand:
It’s not designed for monitoring. The OCC databases are designed for searching — you look up something specific. They don’t have a built-in way to set alerts or notifications when a new filing appears on your section. If you want to know when a new spacing application or drilling permit is filed, you have to manually check on a regular basis.
Multiple overlapping systems create confusion. The split between ECF (post-March 2022) and Case Processing (pre-March 2022), combined with the separate Imaging system, Well Records Search, Well Data Finder, and RBDMS Data Explorer, means you often need to check multiple places to get the full picture.
Production data is incomplete. The OCC’s production data focuses on gas volumes. For comprehensive production reporting including oil volumes, you often need to go to the Oklahoma Tax Commission, which is a separate system with its own search interface.
Horizontal well tracking is tricky. A multi-unit horizontal well may have its surface location in one section but its lateral extending through two or three sections. The OCC records the well under its surface location, which means a well producing from your section may not show up when you search your section by legal description alone. You may need to search adjacent sections as well.
Real-time updates aren’t guaranteed. There can be a lag between when a document is filed and when it appears in the online databases. For time-sensitive filings like pooling orders (which have response deadlines), the mailed notice is the official notice — don’t rely solely on the website for deadline tracking.
Pooling orders have strict response deadlines — typically 20 days from the date of the order. Missing a deadline means the OCC assigns you a default election, which may not be in your best interest. The official notice comes by mail, but if you’re checking the website and see a pooling order on your section, act immediately. Contact the operator or an attorney to understand your options before the deadline passes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Use the OCC Well Data Finder map or the newer RBDMS Well Search table — both let you find wells by section, township and range. The Oil and Gas Well Records Search is a different tool: it searches scanned document images and has no section, township or range fields. It takes a form number plus an API number, a well name, or a single Legal Location string in the format 0711N10E, and it returns scanned forms rather than a list of wells.
Through the OCC’s public document portal at public.occ.ok.gov/WebLink, which splits case documents at 21 March 2022. For newer cases choose 'Imaged Case Documents filed after 3/21/2022' and search by case or docket type, document type, relief type and a filing-date range — there is no county or legal-description filter, so read the location off each result’s metadata. For older cases, find the case first in Case Processing Online at case.occ.ok.gov using section, township and range, then click its Link to LaserFiche column. One trap: if you search by case number, drop the CD prefix. 2026-001238 works; CD2026-001238 silently returns nothing.
Drilling permits are Form 1000. Start at the OCC Imaged Documents Directory, click Oil and Gas Well Records Forms, set Form Number / Type to 1000, and enter the ten-digit API number with no dashes — or a well name, or a Legal Location in the 0711N10E format. Click Submit. What comes back is the scanned permit image.
They do different jobs. The Well Records Search is a document-image search: give it a form number and a well identifier and it returns scanned OCC forms. It is not a well database — no tabular well list, no production figures, no status column, no export. Well Data Finder is a GIS map showing wells as points, and the newer RBDMS Well Search presents the same well data as a filterable table with operator, status and API columns. Use Well Data Finder or RBDMS Well Search to find wells; use Well Records Search to read their paperwork.
Completion reports are Form 1002A and exist only as scanned images — there is no Completions button and no data view. Go to the OCC Imaged Documents Directory, click Oil and Gas Well Records Forms, set Form Number / Type to 1002A, enter the ten-digit API number, and click Submit. Watch the dates: the index files a completion report under the well’s completion date, not the date it was filed or scanned, so search a wide range.
ECF is the OCC’s filing platform for new cases — spacing, pooling, increased density and the rest. It is what operators and attorneys file through, and it requires an account: the public cannot search it. To read case documents as a mineral owner, use the OCC’s public portal at public.occ.ok.gov/WebLink instead, which needs no account and no payment.
Not from OCC well records — there is no production tab there. Oklahoma production is reported to the Oklahoma Tax Commission by lease, under a Production Unit Number (PUN). Go to OkTAP, type PUN into the services search box, and open Public PUN Search; no account is needed. Search by legal description, because the search-by-API option applies an input mask that mangles ten-digit API numbers and returns unrelated results. The Production History tab covers a rolling twelve months only; for longer periods the OTC publishes a Production History Request Form.
The Bottom Line
The OCC website holds an extraordinary amount of public information about every oil and gas well and regulatory filing in Oklahoma. For mineral owners, learning to navigate it effectively is one of the highest-leverage skills you can develop. The tools aren’t intuitive, the systems overlap, and the learning curve is real — but every spacing application, pooling order, drilling permit, and completion report on your sections is in there, waiting to be found.
The practical challenge is that the OCC website is designed for on-demand searching, not proactive monitoring. It can tell you what’s happened on your section, but it won’t tell you when something new happens. For mineral owners with properties across multiple counties, manually checking each section across multiple OCC databases on a regular basis quickly becomes impractical. That’s the gap that automated monitoring fills — turning the OCC’s reactive databases into proactive alerts that reach you when filings appear, rather than when you happen to check.