While oil and gas is found in many counties throughout Indiana, there is no way to determine whether it is present at any given location until a well is actually drilled. Drilling for oil and gas entails risk with no guarantees of success. Before selecting a location, Geologists and Petroleum Engineers carefully evaluate data to determine the best location. Information from nearby wells, if available, such as well records, completion reports, production histories, geophysical logs, and core samples are very important to consider. Seismic data is frequently utilized to better understand the subsurface geology and to locate formations or structural features which are often associated with oil or gas deposits.
Most landowners in Indiana will never see an oil or gas well drilled on their property or their neighborhood. The first indication that someone may be interested in drilling a well is when a landman or other petroleum company representative contacts a landowner to obtain a lease for the oil and gas rights to their property. However, it can still be months or years before drilling, if a well is drilled at all.
To determine if oil or gas wells have been drilled on or near your property in the past, you can view an interactive map of historic wells from the Petroleum Database Management System (PDMS) on the Indiana Geological Survey Web site at: http://igs.indiana.edu/pdms/. A link to PDMS is also on the Division of Oil and Gas Web site.