The play everyone declared finished has 166 wells that first produced since January 2024 and 156 permits approved in the last 90 days. If your Barnett checks shrank to nothing years ago, the wells under you may not be finished either.
The Barnett is the play everyone declared finished, and the data says otherwise. Not a boom. A steady, quiet re-completion program in a field with more mineral owners per square mile than anywhere in Texas, most of whom stopped paying attention around 2014.
Berlin buys Barnett minerals and royalties across all the Fort Worth Basin counties, in any size.
166 Barnett wells have first produced since January 2024.
| County | New wells since Jan 2024 | Permits, last 90 days | Producing wells |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tarrant | 58 | 36 | 4,090 |
| Wise | 37 | 31 | 4,988 |
| Denton | 32 | 20 | 3,161 |
| Dallas | 16 | ||
| Montague | 15 | 1 | 2,414 |
| Jack | 4 | 66 | 2,217 |
| Johnson | 1 | 2,472 | |
| Parker | 1 | 1,374 | |
| Hood | 637 |
Two things stand out. Tarrant County has the most new completions, which is remarkable for a county that is mostly Fort Worth and its suburbs. And Jack County has 66 permits in 90 days, more than Tarrant and Wise combined, which means the next wave of activity is moving west.
This is the single most valuable thing on this page, so we will be direct about it.
A Barnett check that stopped does not mean a Barnett well that stopped.
The common causes, roughly in order of frequency:
The money in categories one through four does not disappear. It sits in operator suspense, and eventually it goes to the Texas unclaimed property division. We will tell you how to find it and you keep it, whether or not you ever sell anything to us. See unclaimed royalties and the royalty statement decoder.
Almost every offer you receive is a multiple of your last twelve months of royalty income.
In a field being re-completed, that method has a specific and predictable failure: it assigns a value of zero to the refrac.
A refrac uses a wellbore that already exists, which makes it far cheaper than a new well and is exactly why it pencils in a mature field. It requires no new lease from you, no new pooling, and no notice. The first you may hear about it is a check arriving again after years of nothing.
So the arithmetic behind a mailer offer is not just conservative here. It is structurally blind to the thing currently driving activity in the play.
When we underwrite a Barnett interest, refrac and re-completion potential on your unit is an explicit line, with the probability we assigned and the reason. A buyer who will not break that out is either not doing the work or would rather you not see it.
Tarrant and Denton contain the densest concentration of mineral owners in Texas, and a large share of them are people who bought a house.
Two things worth being clear about:
We will pull that chain for you free, in Tarrant, Denton, Johnson, or anywhere else in the basin, whether or not you ever sell anything to us.
Well, permit, and completion 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.
The play that started American shale gas. Thousands of wells drilled between 2002 and 2012 across the Fort Worth Basin, most of them still producing on a very gentle decline.
The current activity. Operators are going back into existing wellbores rather than drilling new ones. A refrac on your unit can restart a check that stopped years ago, and it is not something an offer based on last year's income can see.
The shallower conventional section across the western counties, oilier than the Fort Worth core and productive here since long before the shale.
Minerals under neighborhoods, schools, and the airport still pay royalties. Surface ownership and mineral ownership are separate questions, and selling one does not affect the other.
Wise has the most producing Barnett wells at roughly 5,000. Tarrant has the most recent completions. Jack County is drawing the most permits right now, 66 in the last 90 days. We buy across all of it.
Everything a Texas 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 Texas guideEvery oil and gas operator in Texas, with contact information, refreshed from the state regulator. Free to search, and useful whether or not you ever sell anything.
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