The Delaware Basin generates more comparable data per section than almost any other play we document, which is a different kind of challenge than a sparse record.
Across Reeves, Loving, Ward, Culberson, and Winkler counties in Texas, and Eddy and Lea counties in New Mexico, operators have drilled the Wolfcamp, Bone Spring, and Avalon intervals in overlapping horizontal patterns, sometimes a dozen or more wells per spacing unit across different landing zones. That density is good for benchmarking but it means a documentation file has to organize a lot of concurrent production data correctly rather than simply locate a scarce comp.
A single Delaware Basin unit can carry Wolfcamp A, Wolfcamp B, and Bone Spring wells drilled in separate phases, each with its own division order and its own decline profile. Grouping all of these into one blended production number obscures which zones are actually driving current income, so the file should list production by well and by target formation where the operator reports it that way.
New Mexico's Oil Conservation Division and the Texas Railroad Commission both publish well-level production, which lets a documentation file cross-check what a family's royalty statements show against the public record.
Because this basin still has substantial permitted-but-undrilled inventory in many units, a formal valuation needs to separate three things clearly: currently producing wells, wells with filed permits, and remaining undeveloped bench potential that has no permit yet. Blending future development into a current-value figure without that separation tends to overstate what is actually documented.
Decline behavior on Wolfcamp and Bone Spring horizontals is steep in the first twelve to eighteen months, so recent wells and older wells within the same unit should not be averaged together without noting each one's vintage.
Some tracts here were leased decades before the current horizontal boom, under conventional-era lease terms that did not anticipate today's multi-well pad development. Where the original lease is thinner on modern development or pooling language, a review of how the current unit was formed, whether by voluntary pooling or a Railroad Commission order, adds necessary context to the file.
The basin can frame formations, product windows, decline shapes, well designs, spacing, takeaway, basis, deductions, operator behavior, and development pace. The subject remains the specific property schedule, lease, unit, wells, owner decimal, burdens, and effective date.
Producing wells, behind-pipe intervals, permits, offsets, undeveloped benches, recompletions, and broad operator inventory in the basin carry different levels of support. Each layer receives its own source date, timing assumption, production shape, burden, price case, probability, and discount.
Resolve these questions so the appraisal conclusion can be traced to a defined interest, date, method, and evidence set.
Modern Wolfcamp and Bone Spring development often drills many wells per spacing unit across separate benches and phases, so multiple concurrent producing wells under one unit is typical rather than unusual.
They should be documented separately from current production. A defensible file distinguishes what is already producing from what is only permitted or undeveloped.
The Texas Railroad Commission and New Mexico Oil Conservation Division both publish well-level production data that can be cross-referenced against operator statements.
A documentation-based valuation is typically the starting point; your attorney will advise whether the specific filing requires an additional licensed appraisal or expert report.
Carry the same effective date, interest definition, evidence hierarchy, and limitations into these related appraisal procedures.
Midland Basin interests often stack decades of legacy vertical production under newer horizontal drilling. See how that layering shapes a documentation file.
