No. 3 of ten · API state code 30
New Mexico: the OCD.
Oil Conservation Division — the agency that decides where wells go in New Mexico. Here is what it holds, what it doesn't, and the one document worth your afternoon.
The agency
Where it came from
The OCD permits wells, gathers production data, enforces the state's oil and gas statutes, and — in its own words — protects correlative rights. New Mexico was one of the states that signed the interstate compact in Dallas in 1935.
- Agency
- Oil Conservation Division
- Sits within
- Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD)
- Also worth knowing
- The Oil Conservation Commission hears the larger contested cases
- Website
- www.emnrd.nm.gov/ocd/
- Main plays
- Delaware (Permian) · San Juan
- API state code
- 30 — every well number in the state starts with it
- Pooling / unitization
- Compulsory pooling: common
- Ad valorem on minerals
- Ad valorem: withheld — confirm the current treatment locally
- Records access
- Free
- Deeds & leases at
- County Clerk
- Production rank
- No. 3 of the ten, at roughly 1,190 MMBOE a year (EIA, 2023, 6:1)
Agency names, form numbers, websites and fees change. Confirm anything you intend to rely on against the agency's own site.
If you only do one thing
The document to pull
New Mexico · start here
Form C-102 — the Well Location and Acreage Dedication Plat
The C-102 is New Mexico's direct twin of the Texas plat, and for a mineral owner it is arguably better: it names the pool, the dedicated acres, the surface and bottom-hole locations, and whether the spacing unit overlaps another. If you want to check the denominator in your decimal, this is the form.
- Open OCD Permitting and use the well search — by API number, operator, or by section, township and range.
- A well appears in this database as soon as its permit to drill is approved, so you can often see a well coming before it is drilled.
- Open the C-102 for the well and read the dedicated acres and the pool name. Compare the acreage against your own tract.
- If your interest was pooled without your signature, search the hearing and case files for the compulsory pooling order covering your spacing unit.
- Use C-115, the operator's monthly report, for production history.
Worth knowing
What else this agency publishes
Named here rather than linked directly, because deep links into state records systems break more often than the systems do. Search the name from www.emnrd.nm.gov/ocd/.
Where it differs from Texas
Not the same as the RRC
New Mexico uses compulsory pooling far more routinely than Texas does. If you are an unleased owner in a spacing unit, there is very likely an order with your name in it.
Before you start
Two things to have in hand
Your legal description
Every search on New Mexico's system wants to know where, and none of them accept a street address as the real answer. Get the section, township and range — or the survey and abstract — off your deed or an old check stub before you open the website. Without it you are guessing.
The API number, once you find it
Every New Mexico well number begins 30. Once you have a well's full API number, write it down: it is the key that works in the state system, in FracFocus, and in every commercial database — and it never changes. Take one apart if you have not seen the structure before.
The thing to remember
The OCD holds the well and the unit. It does not hold your ownership. Deeds, leases, probates and the chain of title live with the county clerk in the county where the minerals are — and no state oil and gas agency in the country can tell you what you own.