No. 10 of ten · API state code 49
Wyoming: the WOGCC.
Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission — the agency that decides where wells go in Wyoming. Here is what it holds, what it doesn't, and the one document worth your afternoon.
The agency
Where it came from
The Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Act of 1951 created the Commission and charged it primarily with preventing the waste of oil and gas and protecting correlative rights — almost the same words the 1935 interstate compact used, sixteen years later.
- Agency
- Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission
- Sits within
- Independent commission under Wyo. Stat. tit. 30 ch. 5
- Also worth knowing
- Established by the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Act of 1951
- Website
- wogcc.wyo.gov
- Main plays
- Powder River · Green River · Wind River · Bighorn
- API state code
- 49 — every well number in the state starts with it
- Pooling / unitization
- Spacing & pooling orders
- Ad valorem on minerals
- Ad valorem: yes — confirm the current treatment locally
- Records access
- Free
- Deeds & leases at
- County Clerk
- Production rank
- No. 10 of the ten, at roughly 259 MMBOE a year (EIA, 2023, 6:1)
Agency names, form numbers, websites and fees change. Confirm anything you intend to rely on against the agency's own site.
If you only do one thing
The document to pull
Wyoming · start here
The Form 1 permit to drill and the drilling and spacing unit order
The APD carries the well's location, depth, and casing plan, and it has to clear the state's spacing rules and setbacks before it is approved. The spacing unit order tells you which tracts share the well.
- Search the WOGCC well database by API number, operator, or legal location.
- Pull the Form 1 (APD) for location, depth and the spacing review.
- Find the drilling and spacing unit order covering your tract.
- Read the WOGCC's own Mineral Owners Guide — Wyoming is the only one of the ten states that publishes a guide written specifically for mineral owners.
- Check production reports, which operators file monthly with the Commission.
Worth knowing
What else this agency publishes
Named here rather than linked directly, because deep links into state records systems break more often than the systems do. Search the name from wogcc.wyo.gov.
Where it differs from Texas
Not the same as the RRC
Wyoming's bonding rules are a useful tell about who actually owns the minerals under you: state minerals are bonded with the Office of State Lands and Investments, federal minerals with the BLM, and fee minerals with the Commission itself. A great deal of Wyoming is federal.
Before you start
Two things to have in hand
Your legal description
Every search on Wyoming's system wants to know where, and none of them accept a street address as the real answer. Get the section, township and range — or the survey and abstract — off your deed or an old check stub before you open the website. Without it you are guessing.
The API number, once you find it
Every Wyoming well number begins 49. Once you have a well's full API number, write it down: it is the key that works in the state system, in FracFocus, and in every commercial database — and it never changes. Take one apart if you have not seen the structure before.
The thing to remember
The WOGCC holds the well and the unit. It does not hold your ownership. Deeds, leases, probates and the chain of title live with the county clerk in the county where the minerals are — and no state oil and gas agency in the country can tell you what you own.