Sell Mineral Rights
in Caddo Parish,
Louisiana.
Caddo Parish sits in the western edge of the Haynesville Shale fairway, with more than a century of oil and gas history layered beneath it. From the original 1906 Caddo-Pine Island field to modern dry-gas horizontals, Caddo minerals have been producing for a long time. If you own rights here, we are happy to help you understand what you have.
A century of production
under one parish.
Caddo Parish sits in the far northwestern corner of Louisiana, anchored by Shreveport on the Red River. Geologically, the parish covers part of the East Texas / North Louisiana Salt Basin, a deep sedimentary trough that has produced oil and gas continuously since the early twentieth century. The 1906 Caddo-Pine Island discovery north of Shreveport was one of the earliest commercial oil fields in Louisiana and helped launch the regional industry.
What makes Caddo distinctive today is the layering. The shallow and middle-depth Cotton Valley sands and the deeper Haynesville Shale stack on top of each other, and many parts of the parish have been productive in both. Modern horizontal Haynesville development began around 2008 and the play remains one of the largest dry-gas resources in the United States, supplying Gulf Coast LNG export terminals and interstate pipeline grids.
If you are reading this, you may own a piece of that. Maybe you inherited minerals that have been producing for decades. Maybe production stopped years ago and you are wondering whether the rights are even still alive under Louisiana's prescription rule. Maybe an operator just sent you a lease offer or a forced-pooling notice. This page walks through the rock, the operators, the geography, valuation, and the regulatory landscape including Louisiana's distinctive mineral law.
Have minerals in Caddo Parish? Send us what you have and we will take a look.
Stacked pay across a
deep Mesozoic column.
Caddo Parish's productive geology layers Mesozoic sands and shales on top of one another. The Haynesville Shale is the deepest active horizontal target. Above it sits the Cotton Valley group, which has been a workhorse for vertical production for many decades and supports some horizontal development as well. Older shallower zones produce in places too.
The Haynesville is a thick, organic-rich, overpressured shale of Upper Jurassic age. It is the primary modern horizontal target in Caddo Parish and across the broader play in DeSoto, Bossier, and Red River parishes plus East Texas counties. Wells produce dry gas at high initial rates with steep declines and long tails. Modern completions use very large amounts of proppant per lateral foot.
For mineral owners, Haynesville development typically means one or more horizontal wells per drilling unit. Some units have seen multi-vintage development as operators return to drill additional wells over time. Because the play is dry gas, royalty income tracks natural gas prices, which can be volatile.
The Cotton Valley group sits above the Haynesville and includes sandstone and limestone intervals that have produced gas and some oil for decades. Cotton Valley vertical wells have been drilled across Caddo for many decades, and some operators have developed horizontal Cotton Valley laterals where reservoir quality supports it. Many Caddo mineral owners receive royalty income from older Cotton Valley wells that continue to produce at modest rates.
For mineral owners, the practical implication is that even tracts without active Haynesville development may have legacy Cotton Valley production still flowing, and remaining Cotton Valley inventory can support continued shallower-zone activity over time.
Above the Cotton Valley sits the Bossier shale, which has been a selective horizontal target where rock quality supports it. Shallower formations including Pettet, Hosston, and the very shallow Nacatoch and Annona chalks have produced legacy oil and gas across Caddo for many decades. The original Caddo-Pine Island field produced from these shallower intervals.
For mineral owners, the practical implication is that Caddo's geology has many layers of historic and current production. Tracts may have multiple types of activity over time, and old shallow vertical production from the early twentieth century is part of what makes Caddo title work uniquely complicated.
Who is drilling on your
Caddo Parish minerals.
The Haynesville operator landscape is concentrated among a handful of large public and private gas-focused producers. The four operators below are leaders in Caddo and the surrounding Haynesville parishes. Caddo also has many smaller operators running legacy vertical and horizontal Cotton Valley wells.
We know how these operators develop in Caddo Parish. Happy to give you context on yours.
Not all Caddo Parish
minerals are built the same.
Caddo covers roughly 900 square miles in the far northwestern corner of Louisiana, bordered by Texas to the west and Arkansas to the north. The Haynesville fairway runs through the southern and central parts of the parish. Where in the parish your minerals sit shapes everything from formation depth to operator activity to the type of legacy production beneath your tract.
What your Caddo Parish
mineral rights are worth.
Valuation in Caddo reflects a parish with deep legacy production layered under modern Haynesville activity. Dry-gas Haynesville economics tie directly to natural gas prices, which can be more volatile than oil. Cotton Valley legacy production tends to be steadier but at lower rates. The four scenarios below cover what we see most often.
We would rather look at real facts than speak in generalities. Send us what you have.
Louisiana law,
Haynesville realities.
Caddo Parish operates under Louisiana's distinctive oil and gas regime, administered primarily by the Louisiana Office of Conservation within the Department of Natural Resources. Louisiana's civil-law tradition and unique mineral-servitude doctrine make its mineral law genuinely different from neighboring Texas and other oil-producing states.
The Office of Conservation and how units work
The Louisiana Office of Conservation regulates oil and gas activity, permits wells, conducts hearings on unit applications, and administers forced pooling. The state's public well and unit database is called SONRIS and is publicly accessible. Modern Haynesville units are typically formed at large enough sizes to accommodate long horizontal laterals, often spanning multiple sections.
The Louisiana prescription rule
Louisiana treats mineral rights as a servitude, not a fee estate. A mineral servitude prescribes (extinguishes) after ten years without operations or production sufficient to maintain it. This means inherited mineral interests where production stopped a long time ago may no longer exist as a legal matter, having reverted to the surface owner. Determining whether a servitude is alive is often the first step in any Caddo title review and we do this routinely.
Forced pooling and election options
When an operator cannot get every owner in a proposed unit to lease voluntarily, Louisiana allows the Office of Conservation to force-pool the unit. Unleased owners have election options: participate by paying their share of well costs, sign a lease, or be carried as unleased subject to risk charges that the operator recoups out of the owner's share of production before any net revenue is paid. Most small mineral owners do not participate, but understanding the choices when a unit is being formed is important.
Post-production costs and Haynesville gas
Haynesville gas requires gathering, dehydration, compression, and transportation to reach interstate pipelines and ultimately Gulf Coast LNG export terminals. These post-production costs can be deducted from royalty owners' share depending on lease language. Older Cotton Valley leases often have different cost language than modern Haynesville-vintage leases. Reading your specific lease's post-production cost language matters.
Parish records and conveyances
The Caddo Parish Clerk of Court in Shreveport maintains the parish conveyance and mortgage records, which is where mineral deeds, leases, and successions are recorded. Caddo's records go back well over a century and tracing a chain of title for older interests can be involved. Louisiana succession procedures, which transfer property at death, are also recorded at the parish level.
The real questions
mineral owners ask.
We have been through these conversations hundreds of times. Below are honest answers to the things people actually want to know.
Find out what your
Caddo Parish minerals
are actually worth.
Send us what you have, or what you think you have. We will pull SONRIS and parish records, check operator activity in your unit, look at the prescription history if needed, and put together a plain-English summary with our reasoning laid out. If it makes sense to go further, we move on your timeline. If not, you have a free breakdown you can take anywhere.