Oil & gas wells in Merced County, CA
206 catalogued wells in Merced County, California, from the state regulator registry and the federal orphaned-well inventory.
Dataset updated . Derived from public data sources.
At a glance
Merced County, California has 206 catalogued oil & gas wells: 0 active (0%), 192 plugged & abandoned (93%) and 2 documented orphans. It ranks 29th of the 39 California counties WellCensus profiles by well count and holds 0.1% of the state's 242,471 catalogued wells.
Catalogued wells
206
Active
0
Plugged
192
Documented orphans
2
What is the status of oil and gas wells in Merced County?
0% of Merced County's wells are active, 22 percentage points below the California share of 22%. 93% are plugged & abandoned, against 60% statewide and 47% nationally. 1 wells (0.5%) are shut-in — unplugged but idle. 2 wells (1.0%) are documented orphans with no operator able to plug them, compared with 1% across California and 4% nationally. The remaining 11 carry status codes outside those classes, such as permitted or cancelled locations.
What kinds of wells are in Merced County?
By product class, 4 of the county's wells (2%) are oil wells, 27 (13%) gas wells and 0 (0%) injection wells. Statewide the oil share is 68% and the gas share 3%. 100% of the county's wells carry coordinates and appear on the map.
How does Merced County compare with other California counties?
Merced County has the 29th-most catalogued wells of the 39 California counties with at least 25. The median California county on WellCensus has 675 wells. The largest, Kern County, has 156,849. By documented orphans it ranks 28th in California.
Who operates wells in Merced County?
88 distinct operators of record are linked to wells in Merced County. 100% of the county's wells carry a link to a canonical operator profile; the rest list no operator or a name not yet resolved. Each well's page names its operator where the state publishes one.
Wells in Merced County
🔒 Create a free account to export CSV| Well | API # / state ID | Status | Type | Operator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chance 1 | 04-047-00001 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Tesoro Petroleum Corp. |
| Evans & Cook 1 | 04-047-00002 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Marathon Oil Company |
| Thomsen 1 | 04-047-00003 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Great Valley Dev. Co. |
| J. Ferreira 1 | 04-047-00004 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Atlantic Richfield Co. |
| Lease by Turlock Oil & Gas Co. 1-A | 04-047-00005 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Turlock Oil & Gas Co. |
| Lease by Samuel V. Cornell et al 3 | 04-047-00006 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Samuel V. Cornell et al |
| Lease by Delhi Oil Association, Ltd. 2 | 04-047-00007 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Delhi Oil Association, Ltd. |
| Fausone 1 | 04-047-00008 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Hilmar Comm. Oil & Gas Co. |
| Bettencourt 1 | 04-047-00009 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Chevron U.S.A. Inc. |
| Lease by Delhi Oil Association, Ltd. 1 | 04-047-00010 | Orphaned | Other type | Delhi Oil Association, Ltd. |
| Ben Bartlett 1 | 04-047-00011 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Starlyn Oil Co. |
| Turlock Land Co. 37 | 04-047-00012 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Chevron U.S.A. Inc. |
| Henderson 1 | 04-047-00013 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Atlantic Richfield Co. |
| Parker 1 | 04-047-00014 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Atlantic Richfield Co. |
| Parker 1 | 04-047-00015 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Sam Malis |
| J.K. Wadley & K.E. Jennings 1 | 04-047-00016 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | J. K. Wadley |
| Virginia Smith 1 | 04-047-00017 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Atlantic Richfield Co. |
| Crocker-Huffman 1 | 04-047-00018 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Atlantic Richfield Co. |
| Stevinson Unit 10-1 | 04-047-00019 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Reynolds & Carver |
| Richfield-Stevinson 1 | 04-047-00020 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | General Exploration Co. |
| Gallo 1-2 | 04-047-00021 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Shell Western E&P Inc. |
| Fancher 54-34 | 04-047-00022 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Atlantic Richfield Co. |
| Newman 1 | 04-047-00023 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Fox M. Boswell, et al |
| Newman 1 | 04-047-00024 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Minerals & Petro. Dev. Corp. |
| Soares 31 | 04-047-00025 | Plugged & abandoned | Other type | Chevron U.S.A. Inc. |
A sample of the county’s wells — every catalogued well has its own page. Browse all 206 in search → (filter by operator, status and type, then export), or find a specific well on the live map.
Frequently asked questions
How many oil and gas wells are in Merced County, CA?
Merced County, California has 206 catalogued oil & gas wells: 0 active, 192 plugged and 2 documented orphans.
How many orphaned wells are in Merced County?
2 wells in Merced County, California are documented orphans — unplugged with no solvent operator of record, the 28th-highest count among California counties.
What share of wells in Merced County are plugged?
192 of Merced County's 206 catalogued wells (93%) are plugged & abandoned, compared with 60% across California.
Which California county has the most oil and gas wells?
Kern County has the most catalogued wells of any California county on WellCensus (156,849); Merced County ranks 29th with 206.
How many companies operate wells in Merced County?
88 distinct operators of record are linked to catalogued wells in Merced County, California.
Nearby in the California rankings
About this data
Source: CalGEM WellSTAR well registry, plus the USGS United States Documented Orphaned Well Database (2026, doi 10.5066/P13FHBYG), as published October 10, 2026 — WellCensus refreshes it monthly. See the methodology for how records are matched, cleaned and scored.
Cite as: WellCensus, “Oil & gas wells in Merced County, California”, https://wellcensus.com/wells/california/merced (data as of October 10, 2026).