MIDLAND BASIN | PERMIAN

A Comprehensive Guide to the Permian’s Midland Basin, Featuring Subsurface information, Regional Facts & Statistics

Midland Basin
Overview

Once considered home to the world's largest unrecoverable oil reserves due to its tight rock formations, the Midland Basin has become a dominant force in US production since the introduction of hydraulic fracturing techniques in the early 21st century. The following sections provide details about the Midland Basin’s production capacity, major geological structures, market activity, and regional population.

WHAT IS THE MIDLAND BASIN?

The Midland Basin boasts the first discovery well and first commercial well of the Permian Basin. Its geology can be thought of as a mirror image of the Delaware, dipping towards the west where it is bounded by the Central Basin Platform. The basin is shallower and less overpressured compared to the Delaware, even along its axis, and is not as pervasively faulted as its western analogue. Similar to the Delaware, historical development focused on shallower detrital sandstone and carbonate targets sourced from the basin’s peripheral features and deposited during Early Permian Epoch, referred to as the Spraberry group in the Midland. Modern development in the basin is focused on the organic-rich units within the Wolfcamp and Spraberry groups. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies effectively quadrupled the Midland Basin's production in 2012.

WHAT NATURAL RESOURCES ARE IN THE MIDLAND BASIN?

In addition to its vast oil and gas reservoirs, there are a wide variety of subsurface natural resources in the Midland Basin region, including major sylvite formations that yield a steady supply of potassium salts (potash), a byproduct of which is rock salt. Given the high water cut in some Midland Basin formations, produced water is a valuable natural resource that operators must treat and reinject or recycle for use in hydraulic fracturing or even irrigation.

BUYING OR SELLING ASSETS IN THE PERMIAN?

Wolfcamp Formation / Wolfcamp Play

With a thickness up to 1,000 feet, the Wolfcamp Formation is the deepest in the center of the Midland Basin where it is about 12,000 feet deep compared to depths that vary from 4,000 to 7,000 feet at the edges of the basin. Modern drilling techniques have unlocked its vast reservoirs of high-quality shale oil, making it the primary target of Midland Basin development.

Midland Basin Oil Production

In 2012, the introduction of horizontal drilling dramatically increased Midland Basin oil output from approximately 350 Mbbl/d to 1.9 MMbbl/d at the beginning of 2020. While the basin’s path to modern unconventional development was paved by operators in the shallower southern end of the basin, rapidly increasing gas-oil-ratios characteristic of the basin have made the area unfavorable economically compared to the deeper, oilier northern end of the basin where most current activity is located.

Decreasing horizontal and vertical spacing between parent and child wells coupled with cemented carbonates in the subsurface are leading companies to investigate interwell pressure communication across zones in order to mitigate the economic impact of hydraulic fracturing on producing wells (frac hits).

MAP OF THE MIDLAND BASIN

The Midland Basin spans roughly 14,000 square miles in west Texas. It is separated from the Delaware Basin by the Central Basin Platform on the west and in the east the basin transitions to the Eastern Shelf, a platform carbonate feature where conventional resource has been extensively exploited. In the south, the Midland Basin is separated from the Val Verde subbasin by the Ozona Arch.

HISTORICAL AND EMERGING TARGETS IN THE MIDLAND BASIN

The Midland Basin has the honor of being the site of the first discovery well of the Permian, drilled in Mitchell County in 1920. According to the Texas State Historical Association, the first commercial oil well of the Permian was Santa Rita #1 (named after the patron saint of the impossible), which was completed in Reagan County in 1923 within the San Andres Formation at a depth of 3,050 feet and produced until 1990. For the bulk of the 20th century, operators targeted the San Andres and Spraberry Formations with vertical wells. Legacy vertical wells tapped into the stacked pay zones of the basin by completing zones in the Lower Spraberry and Wolfcamp benches, a comingling of production once known as Wolfberry. Today, operators primarily target the Wolfcamp’s rich oil shales with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The Eastern Shelf has also seen recent activity from wildcatters while newly discovered oil and gas reserves in the Val Verde Basin are sure to draw even more drilling activity to the southeast end of the Midland Basin.

WHAT ARE THE FORMATIONS OF THE MIDLAND BASIN?

The formations of the Midland Basin are mainly comprised of carbonate reef deposits and shallow marine clastic sediments. From youngest to oldest (or shallowest to deepest), the formations of the Midland Basin include Tansill, Yates, Seven Rivers, Queen, Grayburg, San Andres, Glorieta, Leonard, Spraberry, Dean, and Wolfcamp.

ADJOINING BASINS AND NOTABLE FEATURES OF THE MIDLAND BASIN

In addition to its core formations, the Midland Basin features a number of nearby adjoining geologic features or basins.

EASTERN SHELF

To the east of the Midland Basin is the Eastern Shelf of the Permian, a relatively small area featuring a conventional, stratigraphic trap within Scurry County, Texas. With lower cost acreage compared to prime positions to the west, the Eastern Shelf offers private E&Ps and wildcatters emerging horizontal drilling opportunities as evidenced by the increase in rig count over 2016 levels.

VAL VERDE BASIN

Separated by the Ozona Arch and directly south of the Midland is the Val Verde Basin, which is roughly 25 miles wide by 150 miles long. With sediments deposited during a long period of flooding during the Middle to Late Cretaceous, the Val Verde Basin is estimated to hold as much as 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and is an emerging major gas producer in the Permian.

Midland Basin Rig Count

Visitors to Midland, Texas are often greeted by lines of drilling rigs ready to deploy to the Midland Basin. Given the extensive target depths for the Wolfcamp and Spraberry Formations, these rigs represent some of the highest performing land drilling rigs with rotary and directional capabilities that demand high day rates.

U.S. Rig Count

521

2% ↑ change from previous week.
Last updated 2021-06-02.

PIPELINES OF THE MIDLAND BASIN

Given its long history and continuous oil production since the early 1920s, the Midland Basin has many of the oldest gathering and transportation pipelines in the Permian representing the basin’s early success. In response to the takeaway capacity needs of the Midland Basin’s revitalization following the advent of unconventional drilling in the last decade, the pipelines of the Midland Basin also include a network of newer oil, gas, and produced water transportation pipelines.

MIDLAND BASIN OIL COMPANIES

The stacked pay zones and prime acreage positions of the Midland Basin have attracted the supermajors and leading publicly traded firms. Midland Basin oil companies also include many smaller independent exploration and production companies. The following table lists top oil companies of the Midland Basin by barrel of oil equivalent (BOE).

Operator	Oil (Mbbl)	Gas (Mmcf)	BOE (Mboe)
Pioneer Natural Resources	717	1,800	1,000
Concho	228	704	345
Endeavor Energy	216	540	306
Apache Corporation	168	728	290
Chevron	759	369	254
Diamondback	185	375	248
XTO Energy	151	425	222
Parsley Energy	145	444	219
Laredo Petroleum	89	551	181
Encana	114	287	161
Occidental	105	281	151
Crownquest Operating	98	252	140
SM Energy	99	205	134
Energen Resources	72	211	107
Hunt Oil Company	53	312	105

COUNTIES OF THE MIDLAND BASIN

The counties of the Midland Basin extend from Lynn County, Texas, in the north down to Crockett County, Texas. Spanning large tracts of sparsely populated acreage, the Midland Basin’s most populous counties are in neighboring Midland County and Ector County.

County	State	Population	Land Area (miles)	Land Area (kilometers)	Surface Water
Andrews County	Texas	14,057	1,501 square miles	2,416 km2	0.02%
Borden County	Texas	525	906 square miles	1,458 km2	1.00%
Coke County	Texas	3,310	911 square miles	2,359 km2	1.75%
Crane County	Texas	4,165	786 square miles	1,265 km2	0.08%
Crockett County	Texas	3,560	2800 square miles	7300 km2	0.20%
Dawson County	Texas	13,657	902 square miles	1,452 km2	0.20%
Ector County	Texas	134,165	902 square miles	1,452 km2	0.50%
Gaines County	Texas	15,382	1,503 square miles	2,419 km2	0.03%
Glasscock County	Texas	1,406	901 square miles	1,450 km2	0.10%
Howard County	Texas	32,940	904 square miles	1,455 km2	0.40%
Irion County	Texas	1,600	1,052 square miles	2,725 km2	0.07%
Martin County	Texas	4,581	916 square miles	1,474 km2	0.08%
Midland County	Texas	176,832	902 square miles	1,452 km2	0.28%
Mitchell County	Texas	8,470	911 square miles	2,359 km2	0.50%
Reagan County	Texas	3,710	1,175 square miles	3,043 km2	0.05%
Schleicher County	Texas	2,983	640 square miles	1,660 km2	1.30%
Sterling County	Texas	1,300	923 square miles	2,392 km2	0.07%
Sutton County	Texas	3,770	1,454 square miles	3,766 km2	0.05%
Tom Green County	Texas	110,000	1,541 square miles	3,991 km2	0.06%
Upton County	Texas	3,130	1,242 square miles	1,999 km2	0.01%

CITIES OF THE MIDLAND BASIN

The cities of the Midland Basin include Big Lake, the oldest oil town in the Permian (named after the oil company by the same name following the 1923 drilling of the Santa Rita #1 well in Reagan County and subsequent oil boom in the area). Midland Basin cities range in population size from more than 340,000 in the Midland/Odessa metropolitan area to 300 in Garden City, Texas.

City	State	County	Population	Land Area (miles)	Land Area (kilometers)
Lubbock	Texas	Lubbock County	254,000	136 square miles	352 km2
Midland	Texas	Midland County	136,000	75 square miles	194 km2
San Angelo	Texas	Tom Green County	93,200	61.9 square miles	160 km2
Del Rio	Texas	Val Verde County	36,000	20.5 square miles	53 km2
Carlsbad	New Mexico	Eddy County	28,800	31.5 square miles	81.5 km2
Big Spring	Texas	Howard County	27,900	19 square miles	49 km2
Plainview	Texas	Hale County	20,800	13.8 square miles	35.74 km2
Brownfield	Texas	Terry County	9,720	6.55 square miles	16.9 km2
Lamesa	Texas	Dawson County	9,210	5.14 square miles	13.31 km2
Littlefield	Texas	Lamb County	5,990	6.28 square miles	16.27 km2
Colorado City	Texas	Mitchell County	3,940	5.33 square miles	13.81 km2
Big Lake	Texas	Reagan County	3,240	2.39 square miles	6.19 km2
Stanton	Texas	Martin County	2,950	1.98 square miles	5.12 km2
Sonora	Texas	Sutton County	2,770	2.22 square miles	5.75 km2
Eldorado	Texas	Schleicher County	1,690	54 square miles	139 km2
Robert Lee	Texas	Coke County	1,030	1.15 square miles	2.97 km2
Sterling City	Texas	Sterling County	993	0.98 square miles	2.54 km2
Mertzon	Texas	Irion County	739	1.25 square miles	3.23 km2
Gail	Texas	Borden County	326	2.02 square miles	5.23 km2
Garden City	Texas	Glasscock County	319	1.78 square miles	4.76 km2

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