Data guide

ReferenceNot affiliated with any regulator

What the public Canadian well files contain, how they link, and what each column means in the Tidywells loaders. You download the files yourself from Petrinex public data (Alberta, Saskatchewan) and the BC Energy Regulator data centre; we do not host them.

1. The files

Province	File	One row is	Used for
AB, SK	Well Licence	a licence	licensee, licence status and dates, substance, purpose
AB, SK	Well Infrastructure	a well	well ID, link to licence, status, spud date, horizontal flag, field and pool
AB, SK	Conventional Volumetrics (monthly)	a well, month and product	monthly volume of oil, gas and condensate (activity PROD, well rows)
BC	Production data (zone_prd*.csv)	a well, zone and month	oil, gas and condensate volumes with producing days
BC	Well Index	a well (UWI)	status and class codes, rig release date

2. How they link

In Alberta and Saskatchewan, a production row points to a well by FromToID (the well ID), the infrastructure file ties that well ID to a licence number, and the licence file gives the licensee. Both licence numbers must be read as text and padded to seven characters to match reliably. In BC, wells are keyed by UWI and the index has no operator names.

3. Columns the loaders keep

Well Licence

Tidywells name	Source column	Notes
licence_number	LicenceNumber	text, zero-padded to 7
licence_status	LicenceStatus	spellings normalised (for example Issued, Abandoned, Suspension)
licence_status_date, issue_date	LicenceStatusDate, LicenceIssueDate	parsed as dates
licensee_code, licensee_name	Licensee, LicenseeName	company on the licence, not always the current operator
substance	WellSubstance	for example GAS, CRUDE OIL, CRUDE BITUMEN
well_purpose	WellPurpose	for example NEW WELL, RE-ENTRY
orphan	OrphanWellFlg	true when flagged Y

Well Infrastructure

Tidywells name	Source column	Notes
well_id	WellID	the ID used in the production files
licence_number	LicenceNumber	joins to the licence file
status_mode, status_fluid, status_type, status_structure	WellStatusMode, Fluid, Type, Structure	for example FLOW, PUMP, SUSP, ABAN; Saskatchewan uses ACTIVE
status_date, spud_date	WellStatusDate, SpudDate	parsed as dates
horizontal	HorizontalDrill	drilling type text
field_name, pool_name	FieldName, PoolDepositName	field and pool
operator_code, operator_name	LinkedFacilityOperator*	operator of the linked facility, often blank

Conventional Volumetrics

Tidywells name	Source column	Notes
month	ProductionMonth	a monthly period
well_id	FromToID	only rows where FromToIDType is WI (a well)
product	ProductID	OIL, GAS or COND
volume	Volume	oil and condensate in m3; gas in 10^3 m3 (e3m3)
hours	Hours	hours on production when reported
prorated	ProrationProduct	true when a proration product is listed

BC production and well index

Tidywells name	Source column	Notes
well_id	UWI	well key in both BC files
volume (GAS, OIL, COND)	Gas_prod_vol (e3m3), Oil_prod_vol (m3), Cond_prod_vol (m3)	summed over zones to one row per well and month
days	Prod_days	producing days; the maximum over zones
status_mode, status_fluid	Mode, Fluid	these names appear twice in the index; the well-level copy is kept
rig_release_date	RR Date	parsed as a date

4. Units and conventions

Liquids in cubic metres (m³), gas in thousands of cubic metres (10³m³). Tidywells converts to barrels (×6.28981) and thousand cubic feet (×35.3147).
Alberta and Saskatchewan volumes are monthly totals. Daily rates divide by calendar days; BC rates can use producing days.
Alberta “oil” includes wells licensed for crude bitumen; filter on the licence substance if you want them apart.
The same company can appear under several names; join on the licensee code instead.

5. A folder that works with the loaders

your_folder/
  Vol_2026-09-AB.csv.zip      (one per month, also -SK)
  Well Infrastructure-AB.csv.zip
  Well Licence-AB.csv.zip
  zone_prd_2025_to_present.csv   (BC)
  well_index.csv                 (BC)

See the Methods page for cleaning rules and What a naive load gets wrong for the traps.

6. Short glossary

Term	Meaning
Decline curve	A formula that projects how a well's production rate falls with time.
Arps hyperbolic	The standard decline-curve family: rate = qi / (1 + b·Di·t)^1/b.
qi	Starting rate of the curve.
Di	Nominal initial decline rate, per year.
b-factor	Controls how fast the decline slows; b = 0 is exponential.
Terminal decline	The slow, steady decline rate a curve is switched to late in life.
NPV	Net present value: future cash flows discounted to today.
GOR	Gas-oil ratio: gas produced per barrel of oil, in scf/bbl.
Shut-in	A well not producing but not abandoned.
Licensee	The company named on a well licence.
UWI	Unique well identifier used in BC.
Spud date	The date drilling began.

Contains information licensed from Petrinex public data (Alberta, Saskatchewan) and the BC Energy Regulator; Crown copyright of the provinces is acknowledged. Not legal advice; check each source's terms before reuse.