How we score 3.7 million wells.
The MotherLode Reservoir framework integrates public regulatory records, commercial well databases, produced-water chemistry, field-contributed outcomes, and 40+ years of practitioner knowledge into a repeatable, data-driven process for identifying legacy wells with remaining economic producibility.
Methodology reflects direct input from practicing petroleum engineers and geologists with operating records spanning the Rocky Mountain, Appalachian, Cherokee, and Illinois basins, including field discovery, waterflood operations, CBM development, enhanced recovery, federal compliance, and SPE-PRMS reserve reporting.
Program Objective
Create a repeatable, data-driven process for identifying wells and fields with remaining economic producibility. The program evaluates individual wellbores, surrounding reservoirs, leasehold position, infrastructure condition, regulatory status, and environmental risk before recommending one of five development pathways: recompletion, workover, enhanced recovery, in-field drilling, or permanent abandonment with value recovery.
Key Viability Drivers
Six dimensions assessed for every candidate well.
Reservoir Potential
Remaining oil in place, pressure support, decline history, fluid properties, historical recovery factor, and offset production trends. Evaluated against modern recovery economics to determine whether residual hydrocarbons are worth pursuing at current price and technology conditions.
Wellbore Condition
Casing integrity, cement bond quality, mechanical access, downhole obstructions, historical plugging records, and suitability for recompletion or sidetrack drilling. Mechanical feasibility is assessed before reservoir economics — a reservoir-viable well with compromised casing is routed to plug-with-value-recovery.
Field Redevelopment Potential
Opportunities for infill drilling, pattern realignment, waterflood optimization, pressure maintenance, horizontal laterals, or selective recompletion in bypassed zones. Field-level analysis links wells by formation and identifies bypassed pay, undrained acreage, and pressure communication.
Infrastructure Readiness
Availability and condition of roads, tanks, gathering lines, power, water handling, saltwater disposal, and nearby processing capacity. Infrastructure cost is a key determinant of whether marginal wells are economically viable.
Regulatory and Ownership Clarity
Lease status, mineral ownership, operator responsibility, bonding, orphan-well classification, surface access, and state approval pathway. Wells with unresolved ownership or bonding gaps are flagged for legal review before recompletion recommendations are issued.
Environmental and Safety Profile
Methane emissions, groundwater risk, surface contamination, proximity to communities, and plugging or remediation liabilities. High environmental-risk wells are routed to the plug-and-remediate pathway with federal funding eligibility flags.
Candidate Ranking
Thirteen-point viability score. Three output buckets.
Each well or field receives a composite viability score. High-ranking candidates advance to field verification and engineering design. Medium-ranking candidates are held for additional data acquisition. Low-ranking candidates are recommended for plugging, remediation, or alternative use.
Scoring Criteria
- Estimated incremental recoverable oil or bycatch value
- Expected payout period
- Capital required per barrel of incremental recovery
- Current or restorable wellbore integrity
- Proximity to existing infrastructure
- Regulatory approval pathway complexity
- Methane-reduction benefit and federal funding eligibility
- Quality of ownership and lease records
- Confidence in production history
- Confidence in reservoir mapping
- Water-handling requirements and disposal pathway
- Operating cost per barrel at current pricing
- Likelihood of near-term execution
High-ranking candidates. Field verification and engineering design initiated. Go/no-go recommendation with cost estimate and production forecast.
Medium-ranking candidates. Additional data acquisition specified — pressure testing, fluid sampling, mechanical integrity testing, or drone-based methane survey.
Low-ranking candidates. Federal funding eligibility flags included. Alternative use screening (CO₂ storage, geothermal, surface redevelopment) where applicable.
Development Pathways
Five defined outcomes for every well that enters the system.
Workover and Recompletion
Restore production from existing wellbores where mechanical condition and reservoir quality support low-cost intervention. Selective recompletion in bypassed zones where logging or production data indicates untouched pay.
Enhanced Oil Recovery
Evaluate waterflood improvement, polymer, surfactant, gas injection, cyclic gas, or other recovery methods where reservoir conditions justify additional capital. Pattern realignment and pressure maintenance as appropriate.
In-Field Drilling
Identify bypassed pay, attic oil, undrained compartments, and underdeveloped spacing using modern geologic and engineering analysis. Horizontal laterals in formations previously drilled vertically only.
Plug with Value Recovery
Where producibility is not viable, coordinate plugging with methane reduction credit, surface restoration, and federal and state orphan-well funding eligibility — DOE BIL, NETL CORE-CM, EPA methane, and state programs.
Alternative Subsurface Use
Screen depleted reservoirs and plugged-well areas for CO₂ storage, natural gas storage, hydrogen storage, geothermal evaluation, or surface redevelopment where technically and legally feasible.
Data Integration
The data nobody has integrated — until now.
State oil and gas commissions hold the historical completions. USGS holds the contemporary water chemistry. Commercial databases hold the production history. Operators hold the ground-truth outcomes. MotherLode Reservoir is the first system to integrate all four with a feedback loop that compounds across deployments.
Commercial Intelligence
Well, permit, rig, production, completion, lease, operator, and activity data. Multi-well downloads, field mapping, production-decline review, offset-well comparison.
Domestic and international E&P records, well files, drilling and completion data, production history, well logs, basin data, land data, and offset drilling information.
Federal and Regulatory
Production records, permits, completion reports, plugging records, and operator history across active U.S. producing states.
Contemporary water chemistry by well and formation: TDS, chlorides, lithium, rare earth indicators, and geochemical signatures.
Documented orphaned and abandoned wells, methane measurement data, and remediation program eligibility.
Reserve Validation
Qualified petroleum engineering firms aligned to SPE-PRMS and SEC reserve reporting requirements. Validates producibility assumptions, remaining reserves, recovery factors, and economics.
Society of Petroleum Engineers Petroleum Resources Management System. All reserve and resource classification outputs are aligned to SPE-PRMS and SEC reporting standards.
Field-Contributed (Verified Contributor Framework)
Confirmed brine assay results, helium recovery rates, residual hydrocarbon yields post-recompletion, formation pressures, and real-world recompletion economics. Feeds back into the prediction model.
Pilot Program
One basin. Three buckets. A defensible basis for deployment.
Phase 1 screens one mature field or basin containing a mix of producing, marginal, idle, and abandoned wells. The pilot produces a portfolio with three output categories that demonstrate scalability and provide a defensible basis for further capital deployment.
Phase 1 Deliverables
- Desktop review of state, federal, and commercial records for target basin
- Field verification of top-ranked candidates
- Drone-based methane emissions screening where applicable
- Mechanical integrity assessment
- Reservoir ranking and remaining-reserves estimate
- Capital cost estimate and production forecast per candidate
- Regulatory pathway analysis per candidate
- Written pilot report: three-bucket output
Standards Alignment
- SPE-PRMS
All reserve and resource classification outputs aligned to the Society of Petroleum Engineers Petroleum Resources Management System.
- SEC Reserve Reporting
Applicable to wells within acquisition or investment contexts. Independent PE firm validation available.
- FAR / DFARS Compliance
Hash-signed audit trail on every output. Applicable compliance clauses for federal program engagements.
If your work touches the per-well producibility gap, we welcome a technical discussion.
For program inquiries, pilot engagement, partnership conversations, and platform access requests.