Fairfield, Wayne City, Cisne: we buy minerals and royalties throughout Wayne County, the deep center of the Illinois Basin and the south half of Clay City Consolidated.
Wayne County sits over the deepest part of the Illinois Basin, and for a generation after Clay City Consolidated came in in 1937 it was the most drilled ground in the state: the ISGS database carries about 3,100 unplugged oil producer records here and 4,300 plugged ones. The rigs are mostly gone. The royalties are not, and most of the ones we see are a fraction of a fraction, divided among cousins who have never been to Fairfield.
What produces here. The Illinois Petroleum Resources Board puts Wayne County at 231,247 barrels for calendar 2025, eighth in the state, down from 248,966 in 2024. The oil comes from the south half of Clay City Consolidated and from Golden Gate Consolidated, Johnsonville Consolidated, Mill Shoals, Maple Grove Consolidated, Barnhill, Aden Consolidated, Calhoun Consolidated, Keenville, Half Moon, Markham City North and Mayberry, with pay in the Ste. Genevieve, Salem, McClosky, Ullin, Aux Vases and Warsaw. Pure Oil and the Texas Company are still on the historical records; the operators you will see on checks and in the county records today include CountryMark Energy Resources, which completed an oil well here in 2025, Mid-States Oil, Fairfield Oil, Dee Drilling, Nichols Operating, Pioneer Oil and Jerry E. Friend. Drilling is thin: the IDNR weekly permit logs show one oil well permit in 2025, a Quimbys Mill test to 6,500 feet in August, and three in 2026, Mid-States Oil's Dozier 1 in April and Fairfield Oil's Sams 1 on October 5, both Ullin wells to 4,400 feet in the same section southeast of Fairfield, and Dee Drilling's Fearn 1 to the Aux Vases at 3,250 feet on October 23, 2026.
Whatever you own here, producing royalties, non-producing acreage, or an inherited fraction split among family, we will identify it from whatever paperwork you have, value it off the actual wells and activity, and show you the reasoning with the offer. Free, no obligation, and no pressure: if keeping it is the right answer, we will say so. Inherited it? Start with inherited mineral rights in Illinois.
The south end of Clay City Consolidated, discovered in 1937, plus Golden Gate Consolidated, Johnsonville Consolidated, Mill Shoals, Maple Grove, Barnhill, Aden, Calhoun, Keenville, Half Moon and Mayberry, the thickest stack of Mississippian pay in the basin.
The Valmeyeran carbonates that carry Wayne County, with the Aux Vases and Warsaw alongside; the 2026 permits are Ullin tests at 4,400 feet and an Aux Vases well at 3,250.
Wherever your tract sits in Wayne County, we will research it free and value it with the work shown.
We buy in every Illinois county, including ones without a page here. See the full county index or the Illinois overview.
Whether you need a probate, the affidavit and transfer on death routes, the dormant mineral rules, and where unpaid royalties go: inherited mineral rights in Illinois, what heirs should do.
What Illinois mineral rights are worth, information only, with this month's activity. Unclaimed Illinois royalties: where the money goes and how an heir claims it.
Everything a Illinois 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.
Read the Illinois guideThe things owners here most often wish they had read first. All free, none of it gated.
Free, no obligation, and no pressure. We reply within one business day, usually faster.
Prefer the phone? Call or text 918-984-1645 and you will get Stephen, the owner, not a call center. If we miss you, we text back the same day.
In a hurry? Text a photo of a royalty check stub to 918-984-1645 and our preliminary offer puts a written number in front of you within about two business days. It holds for 7 while you decide.