5,571 wells are still producing in the Fayetteville and five have come online since January 2024. The drilling ended, the mail stopped, and roughly ten thousand Arkansas families were left holding an interest nobody will put a number on. It is still worth something, and we will tell you what.
The Fayetteville Shale was drilled hard between roughly 2005 and 2015, and then it stopped. Five wells have first produced in the entire play since January 2024. There is no active rig anywhere in it.
5,571 wells are still producing.
Those two facts describe most of what an Arkansas mineral owner needs to know, and they point in a direction that neither the boom-era coverage nor the current silence gets right.
| County | Producing wells |
|---|---|
| Van Buren | 1,568 |
| White | 1,276 |
| Conway | 1,121 |
| Cleburne | 1,107 |
| Faulkner | 405 |
| Independence | 53 |
| Pope | 23 |
| Jackson | 18 |
Flywheel Energy operates roughly 3,859 of them, having taken over Southwestern Energy's Arkansas position. Razorback Production runs about 885 and Van Buren Energy Production about 809.
If your royalty check changed hands and the name on it is unfamiliar, that consolidation is why. Nothing happened to your interest.
Most mineral buyers are in the growth business. Their models want undrilled locations and rising production, and a play with zero rigs supplies neither. So the mail that flooded north central Arkansas in 2012 stopped, and a great many owners concluded their minerals became worthless.
They did not. A producing well is not a dead asset. Fayetteville wells decline very gently once past their early years, which is the definition of a modest check attached to a long life.
What that is worth is a real number, and it is neither the number owners were promised in 2012 nor the zero implied by the silence since.
As a stream, not as a story.
That means a discount rate applied to the remaining production, an honest decline estimate, an honest forward gas curve, and nothing at all added for locations nobody is going to drill.
The forward curve matters more than owners expect. A twenty year gas stream is priced off the long end of the curve, and the long end and the monthly spot headline frequently disagree. A buyer quoting you today's gas price for a two decade asset is not being conservative.
This play consolidated harder than most, which means payors changed for nearly everyone. A check that stopped in the Fayetteville usually means one of these:
The money in the first four does not vanish. It accrues in operator suspense and eventually goes to the Arkansas unclaimed property division. Send us your last statement and we will tell you which case you are in and how to recover it. You keep it, whether or not you ever sell anything to us. See unclaimed royalties and the royalty statement decoder.
For a lot of Fayetteville owners, keeping is the correct answer. A gently declining gas royalty that pays reliably is a reasonable thing to own if you do not need the money and a sale would trigger tax you would rather not pay.
Selling tends to make sense here for specific reasons: an estate that has to be divided, an interest too small to justify the paperwork, or a family that wants out of a jointly held asset. If you are not in one of those situations we will say so.
Well and operator counts are sourced from Enverus and current as of August 2026. Berlin Royalties is a mineral buyer and a landman shop in Tulsa, not a law firm or a tax advisor, and this page is general information rather than advice about your interest.
0
In the counties where we buy.
1
New drilling permits in our counties.
0
New wells turned to sales.
Statewide totals for Fayetteville Shale. Source: Enverus, as of 2026-08-17. Rigs are currently active; permits are those approved in the last 90 days; completions are wells reporting first production in the last 90 days, which lags reporting by state. Activity like this moves mineral value. If it is happening near you, find out what your interest is worth before you take anyone's offer.
A Mississippian dry gas shale across the Arkoma Basin in north central Arkansas. Drilled hard between 2005 and 2015, then abandoned by new drilling almost entirely. The wells that were drilled are still producing on a long, shallow decline.
Deeper shale intervals below the Fayetteville that were never developed at scale. Whether your lease covers them, and whether they are held, is a live question on some acreage.
The older conventional Arkoma gas sands. In parts of Conway and Faulkner County these account for production that long predates the shale.
Van Buren County has the most producing Fayetteville wells at roughly 1,568, then White at 1,276, Conway at 1,121, Cleburne at 1,107 and Faulkner at 405. There is no active rig anywhere in the play.
Everything a Arkansas owner needs in one place: who owns what under state law, how royalties must be paid and by when, what a buyer can and cannot deduct, the tax treatment of a sale, and the deadlines that quietly cost people their minerals. Free, and no sign-up.
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