How to Read a Drill Site Report

To read a drill site report, work in a fixed order: header, then the three production columns, then the ratios, then pressures and choke, then downtime, then reconcile it against the run tickets. A barrel figure with no choke size, no pressure, and no hours-on-line count is a fragment, not a result.

Read the header before the numbers

Every daily report identifies the well before it describes it: operator, well or lease name, API number, formation, and the exact 24-hour window the numbers cover. The API number is the only unique identifier. Lease names repeat, and operators reuse them on new drills. Match on API number and date, or you will compare two different wells and believe you found a trend.

Check the reporting period before trusting any volume. Some reports run midnight to midnight, some run tour to tour, and some cover a partial day after a workover or a facility upset. A partial day looks exactly like a collapse in production, and it is the most common misread in the document.

Know which report you are holding

A daily drilling report covers operations: depths, mud weight, casing, bit hours. A production report covers volumes, pressures, and downtime. A completion report covers what was perforated and stimulated. Reading a drilling report for barrels gets you nothing.

The three production columns

Production reports carry three numbers: oil in barrels, gas in thousands of cubic feet (MCF), and water in barrels. Six MCF of gas is roughly one barrel of oil equivalent, but keep the streams separate — different buyers, different handling, different problems.

Unit confusion causes real errors. MCF is a thousand cubic feet; MMCF is a million. BBL is a barrel; MBBL is a thousand. A report that switches conventions mid-month will show a well apparently making a thousand times more gas than it is.

Watch allocated versus measured volumes. Field estimates are often trued up later against purchaser statements. An estimate that runs consistently high is an allocation that has not caught up. Track the gap, not the day. A gap that widens for a month is a meter problem, not an allocation.

Water cut and gas-oil ratio

Water cut is water divided by total liquid, expressed as a percentage. A well making 100 barrels of oil and 100 of water has a 50 percent water cut. If oil holds flat while water cut climbs, you are lifting more fluid for the same revenue, and every barrel of water has to be separated, treated, and disposed of. A slow rise is normal in many Oklahoma formations. A step change in a week is not.

Gas-oil ratio is produced gas divided by produced oil, usually in cubic feet per barrel. Track it as a trend. A ratio climbing while oil falls can mean reservoir pressure is dropping. A ratio dropping can mean a gas lift change, a separator issue, or a measurement problem.

Pressure, choke size, and what the well is doing

Flowing tubing pressure, casing pressure, and choke size explain the volumes above them.

Choke size is usually recorded in sixty-fourths of an inch. A well making the same 80 barrels a day on a 24/64 choke that it made on a 16/64 choke is not holding steady — it is declining, and the choke is being opened to hide it. The same barrels on a smaller choke is a well holding or improving.

Read pressures as a trend, never as a single number. Flowing tubing pressure that steps down with no choke change and no rate change usually means a mechanical problem downhole or a restriction in the line. Casing pressure rising while tubing pressure falls can point to a tubing or packer issue.

Every choke change should carry a stated reason.

The geological data in the packet

Geological content varies by report type, but the common items are formation tops, target interval, lateral length, perforated intervals, mud log shows, and log curve headers.

Check first whether the perforated interval matches the target. A well completed a few feet high or low in the section can still produce, but it will behave differently from the offsets it is compared to, and that difference is geology, not failure.

Lateral length and stage count set the expectation for what a well should make. A short lateral in the same formation will not match a long one.

What a show is, and what it is not

A show is an indication of hydrocarbons in cuttings, mud, or a log response. It is evidence, not production. Reports list shows that were never completed, and readers sometimes treat them as proved volumes. A show tells you where to look; only a completed interval with production history tells you what is there.

Downtime codes and the flat line

Most daily reports include hours on line, hours down, and a reason code. This section prevents the most misreads and gets skipped the most.

A day with twelve hours of downtime shows roughly half the volume of a full day. Read as a production number, that is a 50 percent decline. Read with the downtime field, it is a normal day interrupted by a pump failure.

Look for patterns, not single events. One freeze-off in January is weather. Freeze-offs every week is a heat trace problem. Repeated rod failures, recurring paraffin, disposal trucking delays, and third-party gas plant curtailments all show up as volume losses, and none of them are reservoir problems.

Keep a monthly tally of downtime hours by reason code. That tally, not any single day, tells you whether the well is being operated well.

Reconcile the report against the paperwork

The daily report is a field estimate. The paperwork behind it is the record.

Reconcile in order: daily field report, then the gauge sheet or LACT meter reading, then the run ticket, then the monthly purchaser statement. Each step is closer to custody transfer and further from a pumper's rounding.

Small differences are normal. A tank gauge and a meter will not agree to the barrel. What matters is whether the gap is stable. A gap that widens for three weeks is a leak, a meter problem, or an allocation error, and it should be chased before it becomes a month of missing revenue.

If you are evaluating a well as part of oil & gas investing research, this step separates a report from a claim. Anyone can show a good week; the run tickets show what was actually sold.

Questions to answer before you act

Before you act on a report, answer these questions:

• Does the reporting period cover a full 24 hours, and is it the same window as the last report?
• Were the oil, gas, and water volumes measured or allocated?
• Did the choke size change, and is there a stated reason?
• How many hours was the well on line, and why was it down?
• Is the water cut flat, rising slowly, or stepping up?
• Does the perforated interval match the target formation?
• Do the daily volumes reconcile with the run tickets and the purchaser statement?

If a report fails two or three of those checks, the numbers are not yet a result. Get the supporting documents before forming a view.

Reports are written for the field, not for the reader, which is why they are full of shorthand and missing context. If you want someone to walk through a specific report with you, Silverton Energy Inc is a local oil & gas production company in Oklahoma, open Monday through Friday, 8:00am to 6:00pm.