Pennsylvania’s oil and gas reporting runs through the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), specifically the Office of Oil and Gas Management. The state covers a wide range of producers, from Marcellus and Utica horizontal operators in the northeast and southwest to legacy conventional operators who have been pumping wells in Venango and Warren counties since before World War I. Production reporting works the same way for all of them, though the scale is vastly different.

Pennsylvania operators file production reports twice a year: the state uses semiannual reporting rather than monthly. Each reporting period covers six months. The filings go through the DEP’s online Well Information System (part of the broader eFACTS platform). Production volumes for oil, gas, and produced fluids are reported per well, along with waste volumes and disposition.

The semiannual rhythm is a relief compared to Texas or Louisiana, but it also means six months of data has to be accurate at filing time. The data chain has to hold up across the whole reporting period.

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What Pennsylvania Requires

The PA DEP requires operators to submit:

  • Oil or condensate produced (barrels) per well
  • Natural gas produced (MCF) per well
  • Produced water (barrels) per well
  • Brine and frac flowback (treated separately from produced water in some cases)
  • Waste disposition: on-lease disposal, trucked to commercial facility, injection
  • Well status for each well
  • API number (Pennsylvania uses the federal API format)

Pennsylvania also requires waste reporting that goes beyond what many other states track. Every cubic yard of drill cuttings, every barrel of brine, every trip to a commercial treatment facility: it all ties back to the well and gets reported.

Filing Cadence and Deadlines

Pennsylvania operates on a semiannual production reporting cycle:

  • First half (January through June) is due by August 15.
  • Second half (July through December) is due by February 15 of the following year.

Filings go through the DEP’s online portal. Electronic filing is the standard for any operator with more than a handful of wells.

The Data Chain Over Six Months

Six months of well-by-well data requires discipline. If the data is only assembled at the deadline, you are trying to reconstruct February’s tank gauges in August. The chain that works:

  1. Pumper gauges recorded daily on every tank battery, tied to the wells feeding it.
  2. Run tickets per pull, with API numbers and volume.
  3. Gas meter reads monthly at minimum, weekly or daily on the higher-volume wells.
  4. Waste tracking: every truck hauling produced water, brine, or cuttings gets a ticket, and the ticket gets recorded.
  5. Shut-in days and workover days: tagged with the well they apply to.
  6. Purchaser statements: reconciled as they arrive, not in a panic every six months.

The operators who get into trouble with PA DEP filings are usually the ones who wait. When you open the six-month folder and realize the pumper’s notebook from March is missing, the hole is hard to fill retroactively.

How GreaseBook Supports PA Operator Workflows

GreaseBook captures the daily gauges, run tickets, meter reads, and waste hauler tickets in real time. On the operator side, the data rolls up well by well, and the rollup is current on the 1st of every month rather than waiting for a deadline scramble.

When the August 15 or February 15 deadline comes, the data for the previous six months is already built. The filing prep is a review and reconciliation, not a reconstruction project. GreaseBook does not submit through the DEP’s online system: that submission stays with the operator and their PA filer: but the data arriving at the filer’s desk is clean.

A western Pennsylvania operator with 60 legacy conventional wells across three counties described it this way: “Semiannual sounds easy until the deadline hits and you realize you don’t know what half the gauges said in April. Now we know in April what they said in April, and August 15 is just a submission.”

Six months of production data is a lot to reconstruct at a deadline.

GreaseBook keeps PA operators current on well-by-well gauges, runs, and waste volumes so the semiannual filing is routine.

See how GreaseBook works →

Common Pennsylvania Filing Mistakes

  • Waste volumes underreported. PA DEP tracks waste tightly. Missing a truck is missing a report line, and the state cross-references hauler reports with operator reports.
  • Produced water lumped with frac flowback. For horizontal operators, these are tracked separately in some cases. Lumping them creates downstream issues.
  • API errors on legacy conventional wells. Wells drilled in the 1930s or earlier sometimes have API numbers that don’t match what the pumper writes on tickets. Reconcile before filing.
  • Filing one half and not the other. Operators who file January-June on time but miss August-December end up with compounding late-filing flags.
  • Estimated volumes on shut-in wells. Shut-in wells get zero, not an estimate. Estimates invite audits.

Wrong Fit for This Page

If you are EQT, Range Resources, or a Marcellus major with a full production accounting stack integrating your SCADA, waste tracking, and DEP reporting end-to-end, you don’t need help on the data capture side. This page is for the Pennsylvania conventional operator and the smaller unconventional independent: 5 to 200 wells, pumpers in the field, semiannual deadlines that still show up.

FAQ

Does GreaseBook file directly with DEP through eFACTS?

No. eFACTS is still where Pennsylvania operators file. GreaseBook is what makes the eFACTS upload take 15 minutes instead of 3 days, by giving you a clean per-well, per-month rollup to submit.

When are Pennsylvania DEP production reports due?

Twice a year. The first half (January through June) is due by August 15, and the second half (July through December) is due by February 15.

Do I file through the PA DEP online system?

Yes. Production reports go through the DEP’s online Well Information System, part of the eFACTS platform.

Is Pennsylvania reporting monthly or semiannual?

Semiannual. Pennsylvania stands out from most oil and gas states in that it collects production data twice a year rather than monthly.

Do Pennsylvania operators have to report waste and brine disposition?

Yes. PA DEP tracks waste volumes and disposition in detail, including drilling cuttings, produced water, brine, and frac flowback. The state cross-references operator reports with hauler and facility reports.

About the author: Greg Archbald is the founder of GreaseBook. He built the product from inside the oil patch and has spent 15+ years on the operator side of oil and gas technology.

Semi-annual filing doesn't mean monthly data can wait.

GreaseBook captures tank gauges, well tests, and run tickets at source, so Pennsylvania operators file with DEP from numbers that reconciled months ago. Because the DEP audit letter arrives on its own schedule.

See how GreaseBook works for Appalachian operators →
**P.S.** Pennsylvania DEP keeps moving the format. The operators who stay clean are the ones who treat format changes as vendor problems, not internal problems. Let the software chase DEP. You run wells.