No. 1 of ten · API state code 42
Texas: the RRC.
Railroad Commission of Texas — the agency that decides where wells go in Texas. Here is what it holds, what it doesn't, and the one document worth your afternoon.
The agency
Where it came from
Created in 1891 to regulate railroad rates. Picked up petroleum pipelines as common carriers in 1917, and full oil and gas conservation jurisdiction in March 1919. Its rail functions were handed to the Texas Department of Transportation in 2005 — the name is all that's left of them.
- Agency
- Railroad Commission of Texas
- Sits within
- Independent elected commission — three commissioners
- Also worth knowing
- Still named for the railroads it no longer regulates
- Website
- www.rrc.texas.gov
- Main plays
- Permian · Eagle Ford · Haynesville · Barnett
- API state code
- 42 — every well number in the state starts with it
- Pooling / unitization
- Pooling: mostly by lease
- Ad valorem on minerals
- Ad valorem: yes — confirm the current treatment locally
- Records access
- Free
- Deeds & leases at
- County Clerk
- Production rank
- No. 1 of the ten, at roughly 3,930 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
Texas · start here
The drilling permit (Form W-1) and its plat
The permit is what an operator has to file before a bit turns, and the plat stapled to it is a survey drawing showing exactly where the wellbore goes and what acreage the well is dedicated to. It is the closest thing you will get to a free picture of your unit.
- Open the RRC Public GIS Viewer and navigate to your survey, abstract, or section — or search by operator name if you know who is drilling.
- Click the well to get its API number and lease number. Write both down; every other RRC search wants one of them.
- Pull the W-1 drilling permit and open the attached plat. Check the acreage and the survey calls against your own deed.
- Pull the P-16 Acreage Designation, which states the acreage assigned to the well — the denominator in your decimal.
- Finish with the PR production query to see what the lease has actually produced, month by month.
Texas is the anchor for this whole section, and it is genuinely one of the most generous public records systems in the country. Everything here is free, no account, no subscription.
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.rrc.texas.gov.
Before you start
Two things to have in hand
Your legal description
Every search on Texas'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 Texas well number begins 42. 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 RRC 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.