42,634 wells are producing on the Central Basin Platform, the second largest well population of any play in America, and only ten rigs are running. This is the old Permian between the Midland and the Delaware, and it is the most systematically underpriced mineral acreage we see anywhere.
The Central Basin Platform sits between the Midland Basin and the Delaware Basin, and it holds 42,634 producing wells, the second largest well population of any play in the United States.
Ten rigs are running on it.
Those two numbers together are the whole story, and they are why we think this is the most systematically underpriced mineral acreage in the country.
This is where the Permian began. The shallow San Andres, Grayburg and Clear Fork carbonates have been produced since the 1920s, waterflooded since the 1950s, and injected with CO2 for decades since.
New drilling went east and west because the Midland and Delaware have thick shale that pays for a horizontal well. What stayed here is an enormous population of long lived, very slowly declining wells and an enormous population of mineral owners that essentially no buyer writes anything for.
| County | Producing wells | Rigs |
|---|---|---|
| Andrews, TX | 9,466 | 1 |
| Lea, NM | 7,299 | |
| Ector, TX | 6,319 | |
| Crane, TX | 6,019 | 5 |
| Pecos, TX | 4,291 | |
| Gaines, TX | 3,625 | 1 |
| Ward, TX | 2,523 | |
| Winkler, TX | 2,091 | 3 |
Almost every offer you receive is a multiple of your last twelve months of income. That multiple exists to compensate the buyer for decline: the well pays less every year, so the buyer discounts accordingly.
On a waterflooded or CO2 flooded carbonate, much of that decline is not happening. Some flood units hold production flat for years. Some increase it.
So the mechanism that justifies the multiple has been removed, and the multiple stays anyway. That is not a rounding error. On a genuinely flat stream, the difference between pricing it as a declining asset and pricing it as an annuity is very large, and it always runs in the buyer's favour.
Ask any buyer, including us, what decline rate they applied. If your acreage is inside an active flood unit and the answer is a standard curve, they have priced a different asset than the one you own.
Kinder Morgan operates roughly 3,175 wells here and Occidental about 3,428, and both run large CO2 enhanced recovery operations across the Platform. Hilcorp is the largest operator overall at roughly 5,342 wells.
If your tract sits inside an active flood, your interest has a characteristic no standard model expects: production that may rise. Nothing in a mailed offer accounts for that, because a mailed offer never looked at your unit.
Where the Platform grades into the Midland Basin on the east or the Delaware on the west, there is horizontal Wolfcamp and Spraberry section under acreage that everyone involved treats as shallow carbonate.
Owners on those flanks frequently hold two assets and know about one. We will tell you which side of that line you are on, free, whether or not you ever sell us anything.
Well, rig 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.
306
In the counties where we buy.
2100
New drilling permits in our counties.
106
New wells turned to sales.
Statewide totals for Central Basin Platform. 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 carbonate that built West Texas. Drilled since the 1920s, waterflooded since the 1950s, and now the target of CO2 enhanced recovery across much of the Platform. Long lived and very slow to decline.
The other shallow carbonate pay above and below the San Andres. Together these account for most of the Platform's enormous well count.
The deeper carbonates. Older development, lower well counts, and still producing across Crane, Ward and Winkler.
Where the Platform grades into the Midland Basin on the east and the Delaware on the west, horizontal shale rights sit under acreage most owners think of as strictly shallow. On flank tracts this is the value nobody mentions.
Andrews County has the largest share at roughly 9,466 producing wells, then Lea County New Mexico at 7,299, Ector at 6,319 and Crane at 6,019. Crane has five of the play's ten rigs and Winkler three.
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.
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