U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service Gulf of Mexico OCS Region NEWS RELEASE

MMS Launches New Oil and Gas Information Online System

The Minerals Management Service (MMS) Gulf of Mexico OCS Region announced today the introduction of the oil and gas Public Information Data System, an online system that allows the customer to view and download different types of publicly releasable documents pertaining to the oil and gas industry. These available documents include Well Summary Reports, Sundry Notices, Applications for Permit to Drill, Plans, Pipeline Rights- of-Way Files, and Suspensions of Production and Operations. The new system offers customers savings in money, time, and energy because the public can now get these documents through the Internet at any time.

MMS’s Gulf of Mexico Regional Director Chris Oynes hailed the new system: “This is a tremendous improvement in our customer service capability and for the thousands of customers who use our oil and gas records for activity in the ocean. This Internet access to various records will potentially save them considerable time and expense.”

The system is available at www.gomr.mms.gov. Each document consists of a set of raster format (TIFF) images that can be viewed and downloaded separately. There are approximately 980,000 images available to the public.

The documents can be searched by using six different indexes, namely Expired Leases, G&G Permits, Plans, Rights-of-Way, Suspensions of Production and Operations, and Well Files. Each index is used to search through different types of documents, and each index has appropriate criteria the user can enter. For example, the G&G Permits index is used to search through all Geological and Geophysical Permits by entering any of the following criteria: Permit Number, Applicant Name, Releasable Date, and Notes. In contrast, the Well Index is used to search through Well Summary Reports, Sundry Notices, and Applications for Permit to Drill, and the user can enter an appropriately different set of criteria: Lease, Well Name, API, and Entered Date.

Another feature of the system is that there is an “Imported Date” criterion in each index, where the user can enter a date range to view or download the most recent documents added to the system. The user can also see when the documents have last been updated or added to an index by viewing the “Data last updated” date on each page where criteria are entered.

To make the system even more user friendly, MMS is in the process of converting the TIFF images to PDF format. This process should be completed by the end of the year.

MMS is the federal agency in the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages the nation's oil, natural gas and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf in federal offshore waters. The agency also collects, accounts for and disburses mineral revenues from federal and Indian leases. These revenues totaled nearly $10 billion in 2001 and more than $120 billion since the agency was created in 1982. Annually, nearly $1 billion from those revenues go into the Land and Water Conservation Fund for the acquisition and development of state and federal park and recreation lands.
 

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