Everyone writes about the Delaware Basin side of New Mexico. Almost nobody writes about the shelf above it, where roughly 11,500 wells produce across Eddy, Lea, Chaves and Roosevelt from shallower rock, on acreage a Delaware-priced offer will value wrongly in both directions.
New Mexico has 88 active rigs and nearly all of them are in the Delaware Basin. That is where every article, every mailer and every valuation model is pointed.
Above and around that basin sits the shelf: the Yeso, Abo, Glorieta and San Andres, roughly 11,500 producing wells across Eddy, Lea, Chaves and Roosevelt County, on shallower rock with different economics and almost no coverage written for the people who own it.
| Play | County | Producing wells |
|---|---|---|
| Yeso | Eddy | 6,210 |
| Yeso | Lea | 2,080 |
| Shelf | Chaves | 1,565 |
| Shelf | Lea | 1,148 |
| Shelf | Eddy | 433 |
| Shelf | Roosevelt | 94 |
Eddy and Lea contain both the Delaware Basin and the shelf. A buyer working from a county list cannot tell which one your tract is in, and the valuation assumptions for the two are not interchangeable.
Delaware wells are expensive, high rate and steep. Shelf wells are cheaper, lower rate and long lived. Apply the wrong decline curve and the wrong price deck and the number you get is not conservative or aggressive, it is simply measuring something else.
SEP Legacy runs roughly 1,666 producing Yeso wells, Spur Energy Partners about 1,238, and Riley Exploration Permian 1,092. Hilcorp holds around 721, Diversified Energy 567 and TXO Partners 404.
None of those are Delaware Basin names. They are companies whose business is operating long lived shallow production efficiently, and their presence is a reasonable signal about the character of the asset under you.
On the southern and eastern edges of Eddy and Lea, Bone Spring and Wolfcamp section sits underneath acreage everyone treats as shelf.
If you hold those depths and nobody has drilled them, that is frequently worth more than your entire shallow royalty. If an older conveyance severed by depth, you may not hold them at all, and a buyer who assumes you do is going to discover that at closing rather than you discovering it now.
Your royalty check cannot answer this. The recorded chain can. We will pull it for you free, whether or not you ever sell us anything, and if the answer is that you do not hold the deep rights we will tell you that plainly.
Chaves County has roughly 1,565 producing wells and Roosevelt about 94. Neither is anywhere near the Delaware core, so owners there tend to get either no mail at all or a very low number with no reasoning attached.
We buy there, we have no minimum interest size, and we will research a Chaves or Roosevelt tract with the same work we would put into an Eddy County one.
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.
89
In the counties where we buy.
1035
New drilling permits in our counties.
47
New wells turned to sales.
Statewide totals for Yeso & Northwest Shelf. 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.
The shallow Permian carbonate above the Delaware Basin section, productive across Eddy and Lea. Around 8,290 wells produce from it. Cheaper wells than the Delaware, lower rates, and long lives.
The shallower shelf carbonates, and the reason a great deal of Chaves and Roosevelt County has been drilled at all. Old, slow, and still paying.
The other principal shelf target, frequently developed alongside the Yeso and sometimes severed separately in older chains.
On the southern and eastern parts of Eddy and Lea, deep Delaware Basin section sits under acreage owners think of as shelf. Whether you hold those depths is the single most valuable question on many of these tracts.
Eddy holds roughly 6,210 Yeso wells and Lea about 2,080. On the shelf proper, Chaves has around 1,565 wells, Lea 1,148, Eddy 433 and Roosevelt 94. New Mexico as a whole runs 88 rigs, nearly all of them in the Delaware Basin below.
Everything a New Mexico 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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