Sell San Juan Basin Mineral Rights | San Juan & Rio Arriba County, NM

Sell your San Juan Basin mineral rights and royalties.

San Juan and Rio Arriba Counties hold more than 23,000 producing wells between them, most of them long-life gas that will still be paying in twenty years. That duration is the whole value, and it is the part every income multiple misses.

The San Juan Basin is the largest concentration of long-life gas royalty owners in the American West, and it is priced by most buyers as though it were finished. It is not finished. It is slow, which is a completely different thing, and the difference is where the money is.

Berlin buys San Juan Basin minerals and royalties in San Juan and Rio Arriba Counties, including the very small interests other buyers screen out.

The numbers

County	Producing wells	Rigs	Permits, last 90 days
San Juan	13,695	2	98
Rio Arriba	9,858	1	51

More than 23,000 producing wells between two counties. Only Lea County has more in New Mexico, and Lea is a completely different asset.

Why the standard offer method fails here

Almost every mineral offer is built by taking the last twelve months of royalty income and applying a multiple.

That method is a decent approximation on a shale well, which delivers most of its value in the first three or four years. It is badly wrong on the San Juan.

Fruitland coal and Mesaverde wells decline slowly. A great many San Juan wells drilled in the 1980s and 1990s are still producing today, and a well that has already run for thirty five years on a shallow decline frequently has decades ahead of it. A San Juan royalty is modest monthly money attached to an unusually long tail.

An income multiple prices how big your check is. It captures very little of how long it lasts. On a Permian well that gap is a rounding error. On a thirty year old coalbed methane well it is most of the value of the asset.

This is the single most consistent way San Juan owners get underpaid, and it is invisible unless someone shows you the work. When we underwrite a San Juan interest, remaining life is an explicit line, not something folded into one number.

The honest flip side: this is not a growth basin. Three rigs across two counties is real activity but it is not the Permian, and any buyer telling you a drilling boom is coming to the San Juan is selling you something. What genuine upside exists sits in the Mancos and Gallup horizontal targets, and only on particular acreage. We price that with a probability rather than a promise, and we will tell you when your section does not support the assumption.

One operator, most of the basin

Operator	San Juan County	Rio Arriba County
Hilcorp	~7,883	~5,773
Mach Natural Resources	~2,680
Logos Resources II		~1,101
Enduring Resources	~579	~736
Dugan Production	~712
TXO Partners		~503

Hilcorp operates more than half the basin. That concentration makes administration simple and leaves an individual owner with almost no practical leverage, which is precisely the situation where knowing your statutory rights matters more than being persuasive.

New Mexico gives you an 18 percent hammer

New Mexico's royalty payment statutes are among the more owner-favorable in the country, and very few San Juan owners have ever used them.

Under NMSA §§ 70-10-3 through 70-10-5:

First payment is due within six months
Ongoing payments within 45 days after the month the payor is paid
Late payment carries an 18 percent per year penalty
Funds properly held in suspense accrue at the Dallas Fed discount rate plus 1.5 percent instead
The 18 percent penalty does not apply under $100

Eighteen percent is among the highest statutory rates in the United States. If your check is chronically late, that is a written certified-mail demand away from being worth something. Our free letter templates include the wording, and royalty payment laws by state sets out every state's rule with citations.

Title in Rio Arriba is unlike anywhere else

Rio Arriba County chains run through Spanish and Mexican land grants, tribal land, federal acreage, and fee minerals, frequently on adjacent tracts. Interests are old, fractional, and very often never probated.

That is why most buyers do not answer Rio Arriba inquiries. It is not that the minerals are bad. It is that the title work is genuinely hard and the interests are small, so the economics do not work for a buyer with a minimum.

We run our own title, we have no minimum, and we pay for the curative work as part of a purchase. See selling inherited minerals before probate is done and small mineral interests.

Where to go next

New Mexico mineral rights: payment law, severance tax, and pooling
San Juan County and Rio Arriba County
Chaves County, where the largest operators are helium producers
The Permian in New Mexico: Lea and Eddy, a completely different asset
How mineral rights are valued and when not to sell
Unclaimed royalties and the royalty statement decoder

Well, rig, and permit 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.

What is under a San Juan tract

Fruitland coal

The coalbed methane that made the San Juan one of the largest gas fields in the country. Drilled heavily in the 1980s and 1990s, still producing, and declining so slowly that many wells have decades of life left.

Mesaverde and Pictured Cliffs

The conventional gas section drilled across the basin for seventy years. Shallow, dependable, and the source of thousands of small family royalties.

Dakota

The deeper conventional gas target, developed alongside the Mesaverde on a great many of the same tracts.

Mancos and Gallup

The horizontal oil and gas targets that brought modern rigs back to the basin. This is where any remaining development upside sits.

Where the San Juan Basin is

San Juan and Rio Arriba Counties in northwest New Mexico carry the overwhelming majority of the basin. The play continues north into La Plata and Archuleta Counties, Colorado.

Straight answers for San Juan Basin owners

My San Juan gas check is small. Why would anyone pay much for it?

Because of how long it will keep arriving. Fruitland coal and Mesaverde wells decline far more slowly than shale wells, and a great many San Juan wells drilled in the 1980s and 1990s are still producing today with decades of remaining life. The standard offer method, a multiple of your last twelve months of income, prices the size of your check and captures almost none of its duration. On a shale well that gap is small. On a thirty year old coalbed methane well it is most of the value. That mismatch is the single most common reason San Juan owners are underpaid.

Who operates in the San Juan Basin?

It is heavily consolidated. Hilcorp operates roughly 7,883 producing wells in San Juan County and about 5,773 in Rio Arriba, which is more than half the basin. Mach Natural Resources holds roughly 2,680 in San Juan County, with Logos Resources II at about 1,101 in Rio Arriba, Dugan Production at 712, Enduring Resources at 736 and 579 across the two counties, and TXO Partners at about 503. A basin controlled largely by one operator is administratively simple and gives an individual owner very little leverage, which is exactly when the statutory remedies matter.

Is anyone still drilling here?

At a modest but real pace. San Juan County has 98 approved permits in the last 90 days and Rio Arriba has 51, with three rigs running between them. This is not a growth basin and we will not pretend otherwise. What it is, is an enormous inventory of very long-lived production with some Mancos and Gallup horizontal upside on particular acreage. Pricing it as a growth basin would be dishonest; pricing it as a dying one would be equally wrong, and that second error is the one most offers make.

What if my royalty check is late or stopped?

New Mexico gives you real leverage here. Under NMSA sections 70-10-3 through 70-10-5, first payment is due within six months and ongoing payments within 45 days after the month the payor is paid. Late payment carries an 18 percent per year penalty, one of the highest in the country, though funds properly held in suspense accrue at the Dallas Fed discount rate plus 1.5 percent instead and the 18 percent penalty does not apply under $100. Send a written demand by certified mail and keep the receipt, because the certification is what starts the clock. Our free letter templates include the wording.

My family's Rio Arriba minerals were never probated. Can I still sell?

Usually yes, and it is extremely common there. Rio Arriba title runs through Spanish and Mexican land grants, tribal land, federal acreage, and fee minerals, often on adjacent tracts, and interests are frequently very old and very fractional. That combination is why most buyers do not answer Rio Arriba inquiries at all. We cure title at our own cost as part of a purchase, including the probate work, and it does not come out of your price.

Do you buy the really small interests?

Yes, and the San Juan is the place this matters most. Seventy years of drilling followed by three generations of inheritance has produced an enormous number of interests paying a few dollars a month. Every large buyer screens them out on transaction cost, and owners read the silence as proof of no value. We have no minimum and we pay all closing costs. If money is sitting in operator suspense or with New Mexico unclaimed property, we will tell you how to claim it and you keep it, whether or not you sell anything to us.