Midland Basin Mineral Rights

The Midland Basin's Spraberry-Wolfcamp section has been drilled and re-drilled for decades, and your interest's history often includes both a 1950s vertical lease and a 2010s horizontal pooling order stacked on the same tract.

The Midland Basin, the eastern sub-basin of the Permian centered on Midland, Martin, Howard, Glasscock and Reagan counties, has one of the longest continuous drilling histories in Texas, starting with vertical Spraberry wells in the 1950s and continuing through the current horizontal Wolfcamp and Spraberry development cycle. That long history means a Midland Basin title review often has more layers than a newer play: the original vertical lease, decades of held-by-production status through marginal vertical wells, and then a horizontal pooling order stacking new units on top of the old lease.

We buy fee mineral, royalty and ORRI interests throughout the basin, and our review focuses on confirming which era of development your interest is actually tied to, since a tract still producing from a 1960s vertical well under its original lease terms is a different asset than one recently pooled into a new horizontal Wolfcamp unit.

Vertical legacy production holding an old lease

A meaningful share of Midland Basin acreage has been continuously held by production from vertical wells since the 1950s through 1980s, which means the original lease, often with royalty terms far below what a current lease would specify, has never lapsed and has never been renegotiated. When a horizontal well is later drilled on the same tract, whether it operates under that same old lease or a newly negotiated one depends on the specific pooling and amendment history, and this single fact can be the largest driver of value on an otherwise similar-looking interest.

Stacked Wolfcamp benches and independent spacing

Like the Delaware Basin, the Midland side of the Permian carries multiple stacked Wolfcamp benches along with the Spraberry section above it, each capable of being independently spaced and pooled. We confirm which specific benches your tract currently participates in and pull the relevant Railroad Commission pooling documentation, since an owner may be receiving royalty from only one of several potential zones under their acreage.

Fee mineral value tied to undeveloped benches

For fee mineral owners specifically, part of the value in this basin comes from benches that have not yet been drilled under your tract, since operators continue to develop the Midland Basin's stacked section methodically over many years. We factor current development status and nearby well activity into how we price fee minerals, and we're direct that any premium for undeveloped zones reflects typical development patterns in the area rather than a promise of future drilling on your specific tract.

Old assignments and mineral severances from ranch sales

Much of the Midland Basin's fee mineral ownership traces back to West Texas ranch land where minerals were severed from the surface at some point in the twentieth century, sometimes retained by the original ranching family and sometimes sold separately to an investor. We trace this severance history through the county deed record, since the specific reservation language in an old ranch sale deed determines exactly what was retained and by whom.

We also check whether your tract has been affected by any recent unit consolidation, since some Midland Basin operators have combined adjacent legacy vertical units into larger horizontal development units as they extend lateral lengths, and a consolidation can shift your percentage even where the well count directly on your specific tract has not changed since the original vertical development decades ago.