107 rigs are running in the Midland Basin, more than any oil play in the United States except the Delaware next door. Roughly 58,000 wells are producing here. If you own minerals in Midland, Martin, Howard, Upton, Reagan or Glasscock County, you own the most heavily bid mineral acreage in the country, and the most heavily mailed.
The Midland Basin is the most heavily drilled oil play in the United States after the Delaware, and it is the one where the difference between a mailed offer and an honest valuation is largest.
107 rigs are running here. Roughly 58,031 wells are producing. Midland County alone has 31 rigs.
| County | Producing wells | Rigs |
|---|---|---|
| Midland | 9,993 | 31 |
| Martin | 9,728 | 14 |
| Upton | 5,954 | 15 |
| Howard | 5,949 | 5 |
| Reagan | 5,510 | 9 |
| Glasscock | 4,452 | 10 |
| Crockett | 2,869 | 1 |
| Irion | 2,692 | 3 |
| Andrews | 2,516 | 7 |
| Ector | 1,451 | 5 |
Exxon runs the most rigs at 23, after absorbing Pioneer's position. Diamondback follows at 18, then Occidental at 8, Double Eagle at 6, and Ovintiv and ConocoPhillips at 5 each.
Nearly every offer you receive is a multiple of your last twelve months of royalty income.
Under a typical Midland Basin tract sit Spraberry, Wolfcamp A, Wolfcamp B, Wolfcamp C, Wolfcamp D, Jo Mill and Dean. Those are separate landing zones drilled over many years, not one formation drilled once.
Your income reflects the benches already drilled. The arithmetic behind a mailed offer has no term at all for the ones that have not been. On acreage where three of seven benches are developed, an income multiple is not a conservative estimate of value. It is a measurement of a different thing entirely.
This is why we publish the components. When we underwrite a Midland Basin interest you get the producing value and the undrilled location value as separate lines, with the bench, the probability we assigned and why. A buyer who blends those into one figure is not simplifying. They are removing the only part you could check.
If your family has held Midland Basin minerals since before the horizontal era, you likely have shallow vertical Spraberry production, and a check that has been arriving at roughly the same modest size for decades.
That check is not what your minerals are worth. It is what one thin slice of them is worth.
The horizontal rights under the same acreage are frequently worth several times the vertical stream, and an offer anchored to your check price captures that difference for the buyer. It is the most common way value leaves the table quietly in this basin, and it happens to the owners least likely to suspect it, because the check has been consistent and unremarkable for thirty years.
Midland Basin owners get more mail than owners anywhere else in the country. That is a signal about the acreage, not about any particular offer.
Heavily contested markets are exactly where the spread between the first offer and the best offer is widest, because a buyer's margin comes from the people who accept early. The defense is simple and free: get one competing number with the work shown before you answer anything.
We will give you that, and if the offer you already hold is better than ours, we will tell you and explain why.
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 Midland Basin. 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 formation the basin is named for in practice, developed since the 1950s and now the shallow half of nearly every horizontal target. Upper and Lower Spraberry are drilled as separate benches on most acreage.
The core of modern Midland Basin development. These are four distinct landing zones, not one formation, and an operator will typically drill them over many years rather than at once. Each undrilled bench under your tract is a separate location an income-based offer values at zero.
The benches operators moved to as the primary Wolfcamp targets filled in. On a lot of acreage these are the locations that have not been drilled yet.
Tens of thousands of shallow vertical wells drilled across this basin for seventy years. Many tracts carry both an old vertical royalty and undrilled horizontal rights, and those two things are worth very different amounts.
Midland County has the most producing wells at roughly 9,993 and the most rigs at 31. Martin County is close behind on wells at 9,728. Upton has 15 rigs, Martin 14, Glasscock 10 and Reagan 9. We buy across all of it, including the counties with no page here.
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