Frequently Asked Questions

Only active formations and field/pools that fall within the current map extents appear in the drop-down lists.

Formations, and field/pools may be inactive if they've been renamed or recoded. The disposition documents and information on the Applied-for and Approved layers of the Well Spacing Map show the formation and field/pool code for which you originally applied or were approved. They aren't automatically updated if the naming or coding changes.

If desired, you may resubmit your application to change formation, or field/pool name. You must determine the new name and code using information from the Formation and Pool Coding project, which appears on the ERCB's website.

When completing the Spacing Application tab, if you've already started step 4, 5, or 6 and then click Enable Map Toolbar, when you click Enable Spacing Application, and then click Return to EAS Form, an error message asks you to complete step 6; however, step 6 is disabled.

Do either of the following:

• Using step 4, click a selection size. This will enable step 6. Now click No for step 6 and then click Return to EAS Form.
  
  OR
• Simply click   to close the map. Any areas selected prior already appear in the EAS form.

The map denotes rescinded application areas with a red dot () and new application areas with a green dot ().

The Well Spacing Map is optimized to work with a liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor that is set to a resolution of 1280 by 1024 pixels. Resolutions other than this may affect the ease with which you can scroll the attribute table that appears below the map.

If vertical and horizontal scroll bars don't appear beside and below the attribute table, or if the attribute table is sized so small that it is tedious to scroll, do either of the following:

• Ensure you have an LCD monitor that is configured with a resolution of 1280 by 1024 pixels. For assistance, contact your internal technical support personnel or the support documentation for your computer.
• Ensure your browser window is maximized by clicking on the Maximize button in the upper-right corner of your Internet Browser window.

The Well Spacing Map is presented as an HTML web page. As such it suffers all the quirks common to printing web pages. Here are some suggestions to improve printed pages:

• Printed web pages look most like the on-screen display if the paper size used is at least as large as the map web page itself. So try printing to legal or tabloid size paper in landscape orientation.
• The Spacing map is composed of three frames. The upper-left frame shows the map. The upper-right frame shows the navigation and layers tabs. The lower frame shows messages and the approved spacing records. Try printing the frames separately by right-clicking the page background in each frame and selecting Print from the context menu.
• If the approved spacing list contains many records, print the lower frame by right-clicking on the lower frame background and selecting Print. This enables you to print the entire list rather than just the first few rows of the list.
• The Page Setup dialog available in Internet Explorer enables you to change only the most common print settings. Try opening up the detailed dialog for your printer and confirming that the settings (page size, orientation, font substitution, image options, etc.) are as you need them to be.
• Right-click the map and select Print Picture to print the map image.
• Right-click the map and select Save Picture As to save the map image to a file. You can then open that image in another application or insert it into another document and print it from there.
• Select the content of the screen, paste it into another document, and print it from there. This works well when you want to change the formatting of the approved spacing list in the lower frame. The list is displayed in one or two HTML tables and can be copied and pasted into an Excel spreadsheet where it can be reformatted and printed.
• Take a screen shot (Alt + PrtScrn keys) and print that screen shot from another application.
• Your printing results are a function of your printer's capabilities (some printers don't print images) so try printing to a different printer. The maps are most useful when printed in colour.

Finally, your printing results are also a function of how your computer is configured. If you have access to computer support at work, ask them to have a look and see what they can suggest. It may be that they can adjust your computer settings to improve your printing results.

Approved well spacing is no longer updated using SU Orders. Instead, approved well spacing is updated spatially (i.e. by its location on the map of Alberta) using the ERCB Well Spacing Map. Although SU Orders are no longer being issued, the ERCB is still issuing a disposition document for each well spacing application after a decision has been made. For approved well spacing applications, the disposition documents have the application number and the area of application for which the well spacing has been updated. All disposition documents can be found on IAR Query and the information in those documents can be used to navigate to the area of interest on the map.

The disposition documents are available in IAR Query for 30 days after disposition and from the Board's Information Services department after that.

SU Orders were large complex documents with many sub-clauses and appendices. It was very difficult and time consuming to create and update these documents accordingly and they were often difficult to use to determine the applicable well spacing within an area. The Well Spacing Map allows you to navigate to an area of interest within the province and see all applicable well spacing for some or all formations and pools in that area at one time.

No, well spacing is not approved by field. However, you can use the Navigate by Field and search by View Approved Spacing functions to find the approved spacing in the vicinity of any particular field. You should be aware that your search results have a limitation of 200 approved well spacing records. If that limitation is reached, a pop-up warning message appears and you need to refine your search.

The well spacing map uses colour to match a coloured area on the map to an approved well spacing attribute located in the table below the map (i.e., the blue polygons on the map match the blue attribute row in the table). Sometimes these colours are very similar and difficult to distinguish. If this is the case, you should use the Show On Map tool () on the attribute table to confirm which map area is associated to each attribute in the table.

The colours selected were chosen to provide reasonable contrast, but beyond that, they do not signify anything in particular.

For the most part, the colours stay the same. If, however, a spacing application is approved that amends an already approved well spacing record, the displayed colour may change.

The colours displayed on the map are transparent. So, if the colours on the map don't match the colours shown in the attribute table, it could be due to multiple spacing applications or approvals existing in the same location for different substances, application types, production sources, or formations. Often in areas where multiple spacing approvals exist, the map displays a checkerboard pattern of colours with each colour representing an attribute in the table.

If you suspect multiple spacing applications or approvals apply at a particular location, use the Show Applied-for Spacing () tool, or the Show Approved Spacing tool () to list all approved spacing in the selected location or refine your search to reflect one spacing application type, formation or pool, and production source.

The Application Number column only displays the most recently approved application numbers within an approved area of spacing for applications that were dispositioned on or after October 27th, 2007. Application numbers are not displayed for any of the more than 12,000 historically approved spacing records -unless they have been amended by a spacing application approved subsequent to the release of the Well Spacing Map.

The Well Spacing Map only displays the most current approved well spacing information. If you navigate by Approved Spacing Application Number using an application that has been approved on or after October 27th, 2007 and no records are returned, this indicates that the approved spacing has been amended by a subsequent application (i.e., an area has been added to an existing approved area of spacing or some provisions of that spacing have changed).

Refer to your disposition document for the location of the previously approved spacing and navigate to the area of interest using the Navigate by ATS option. Then, use the Show Approved Spacing tool to find all approved spacing records for that area. The most recent application number affecting the area of interest appears in the attribute table.

Well exemptions are listed on the Well Spacing Map within the approved holding attribute record from which the well is exempt. Any well exemptions are listed in the columns titled Well Exemptions (Buffer Zone) and Well Exemptions (Interwell Distance). However, if a holding is rescinded, the Well Spacing Map won't retain the previously approved well exemption. A historical record of well exemptions can be traced using the historical SU orders and the new disposition documents.

An approved holding attribute may be comprised of multiple distinct holdings. Each holding has the same provisions, but a different ownership (i.e., common ownership does not exist on the lessee and/or lessor basis). The numbers (1, 2, 3, ...) uniquely identify each distinct holding and the location of its buffer zone boundaries.

There is no built-in export functionality. However, you can copy the information displayed on the screen and paste it into another document. For example, you can select the content of the approved spacing attribute table and paste it into an Excel document.

On October 27th, 2007 we loaded the Spacing Map with the content of the then approved SU Orders. Those SU Orders contained more than 12,000 sub-clauses that had to be read, translated and loaded. Despite our best efforts, it is possible that errors or omissions occurred in that data load.

If you see a case where you believe the Spacing Map contradicts the applicable SU Order and no subsequent applicable spacing application has been approved, please send that information to Spacing@ercb.ca so that we can investigate the issue and make any necessary corrections.

Approved well spacing is not shown on the map until the map is at a scale of 1:150000. If you can't see any orders, zoom in on a smaller map area.

You can select as many formations as you wish using the formation option. This is discussed in more detail in the topic Narrowing spacing attributes.

Historically, spacing approvals referenced a range of formations (e.g., Northwest Plains, top of Smoky to base of Bullhead). For the Well Spacing Map, these ranges have been broken into individual formations and groups. Be sure to select all the formations and groups you wish to consider. In the above example, you would select one or more of the listed formations or groups: Smoky River Grp, Dunvegan Fm, Fort St John Grp, Bullhead Grp.