Delaware Basin Mineral Rights

The Delaware Basin's stacked Wolfcamp and Bone Spring section can carry four or five producing intervals under a single surface tract, and no two of them are necessarily unitized the same way.

The Delaware Basin, the western sub-basin of the Permian spanning Reeves, Loving, Culberson, Ward and Winkler counties in Texas and Eddy and Lea counties in New Mexico, is the most actively developed stacked-pay section we work in. A single mineral tract here can sit under a Wolfcamp A unit, a Wolfcamp B unit, and one or more Bone Spring benches, each spaced and pooled independently, which means your fee mineral or royalty position may show up on several different division orders that all trace back to the same acreage.

We buy fee mineral, royalty and ORRI interests throughout the basin, and, where it makes sense, small non-operated working interest positions. Because this is an active development area with regular new-well activity, our review focuses heavily on confirming which units your tract currently participates in and pulling the most recent Railroad Commission or New Mexico OCD spacing documentation before pricing anything.

Fee minerals versus royalty in an active stacked play

In the Delaware, we distinguish carefully between fee mineral ownership, where you own the minerals outright and can lease them yourself, and a royalty interest carved out of someone else's lease. Fee minerals here carry both current royalty income and future leasing optionality across multiple stacked benches that may not yet be developed, which is a different asset than a fixed royalty percentage on a single already-drilled zone. We price these differently, and we ask upfront which category applies to your interest, since the answer changes both the offer structure and the documentation required.

ORRI carved from Permian farmouts and drilling deals

A large volume of the ORRI we buy in the Delaware Basin traces to farmout agreements and participation deals struck during the leasing rush of the last decade, when landmen, geologists and small operators regularly retained an override as part of assembling large operated positions for major producers. These overrides frequently specify a particular formation or a depth range, so a Wolfcamp-only override does not necessarily attach to a later Bone Spring completion on the same acreage. We check the assignment language against the well's actual completed interval before valuing it.

Non-op working interest and participation elections

Delaware Basin non-op WI positions come with real ongoing decisions attached, since operators here drill multiple-well pads and issue AFEs regularly as they develop each bench. We review your JOA, recent AFE history, and whether your interest has been consenting or going non-consent, because a working interest owner who has been funding their share is in a materially different position than one carrying accumulated non-consent penalties. We also confirm plugging liability exposure on any older wellbore included in the package.

Pooling amendments and re-drawn unit boundaries

Because operators continue to add wells and occasionally re-draw unit boundaries as development plans firm up, we ask for your two most recent statements to confirm whether your decimal has changed and pull the current pooling documentation to verify. A decimal that shifted after a recent amendment is not unusual in an actively developing part of this basin, and we confirm the current figure before finalizing any offer.

We also confirm whether any portion of your tract sits within an area affected by a recent horizontal re-spacing, since operators here have occasionally consolidated smaller legacy units into larger, more efficient development units as lateral lengths increased, and a re-spacing can change your percentage even when the well count on your specific tract has not changed.