The plays
behind the rocks.
Most royalty checks in the United States trace back to a small number of formations. The Wolfcamp, the Niobrara, the Bakken, the Marcellus, and a handful of others. Here is what each one is, where it produces, and what it means for mineral owners who hold rights above them.
Permian
Bone Spring Formation
A stacked, multi-bench oil-producing target in the Delaware Basin of the Permian, primarily developed across southeast New Mexico and far west Texas.
Read →Wolfcamp Shale
The dominant unconventional target across the Permian Basin, the Wolfcamp Shale spans Texas and New Mexico with thousands of feet of stacked oil and gas pay.
Read →Williston
Bakken Formation
The dominant oil-producing formation in the Williston Basin, the Bakken transformed North Dakota into a top US oil producer through horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.
Read →Three Forks Formation
A Devonian carbonate target in the Williston Basin that is often developed alongside the Bakken on the same drilling units.
Read →Eagle Ford
Appalachian
Marcellus Shale
The largest natural gas play in the United States, the Marcellus Shale produces enormous volumes of dry and wet gas across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and surrounding states.
Read →Utica Shale
An Ordovician-aged gas shale beneath the Marcellus across the Appalachian Basin, with development concentrated in eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and northern West Virginia.
Read →We'd be happy to talk it through.
If your inherited mineral rights sit in one of these formations and you want a second set of eyes on what you have, reach out. No pressure to do anything with it.