Lea and Eddy county minerals and San Juan basin minerals are two different markets wearing the same state name, and treating them the same is how sellers leave money sitting on the table.
Southeast New Mexico's Delaware basin, spread across Lea and Eddy counties, is some of the most actively drilled acreage in the country right now, oil-rich with associated gas that gets flared, gathered, or sold depending on how fast operators can build takeaway capacity. Northwest New Mexico's San Juan basin, mainly San Juan and Rio Arriba counties, is the opposite story — a mature dry-gas field that's been producing for close to a century, with well counts far outrunning new permits and most of the value sitting in legacy production rather than growth.
We buy both. But we don't price them the same way, and neither should you when you're comparing an offer against what a Delaware basin neighbor might have gotten. A title and revenue analyst who's only ever worked one of these basins tends to price the other one wrong, either overvaluing a declining San Juan tract on the assumption gas will bounce back, or undervaluing a Delaware basin tract by ignoring the drilling that's actually stacking up in the section around it.
In Lea and Eddy counties, the gas you're getting royalty on is almost always associated gas riding along with oil production, and operator infrastructure has had to scramble to keep pace with drilling — gas gathering and processing capacity has lagged behind well completions in parts of the play for years. That's shown up historically as flaring, as temporary curtailment, and as wide swings in what gets deducted from your check depending on which gathering system your well ties into.
Value here tracks oil price and permit density more than gas price, since gas is the byproduct. A Delaware basin tract in an actively permitted section prices well above a comparable San Juan tract, mostly because there's real drilling upside behind it, on top of a check trail.
San Juan is a dry-gas basin that peaked production decades ago and has been on a long, well-understood decline since. That's not a knock — it's one of the most thoroughly produced gas fields in the Rockies, and interests there still throw real royalty. But if you're comparing your San Juan check to a friend's Permian check and wondering why yours is smaller, the honest answer is that gas priced against a regional basin index simply nets less than oil, and there's little new-drilling catalyst left to change that trajectory.
Value in San Juan comes almost entirely from trailing production, so we lean hard on your actual royalty history when we price a tract there.
New Mexico allows post-production cost deductions on most leases unless the lease language specifically prohibits them, so look for gathering, compression, dehydration, and processing fees netted against your price. On Delaware basin gas specifically, processing deductions can run higher than a dry-gas well because operators are stripping out natural gas liquids, which adds a fee even as it can also add value back through NGL sales — read the statement closely rather than just the bottom-line dollar figure.
New Mexico's Oil Conservation Division records force-pooling orders and well spacing units, which is where we start when we verify a tract — confirming your interest actually sits inside a current unit and matches the legal description on file. Both basins have long ownership histories with plenty of fractional and heirship interests, particularly in older San Juan tracts where original allotments split across multiple generations.
State trust land also runs through both basins, since New Mexico's State Land Office controls a meaningful share of subsurface minerals across Lea, Eddy, and San Juan counties, and a private mineral tract can sit right up against state trust acreage without the two being confused for one another on a division order — worth double-checking your legal description names the correct grantor before we quote.
Delaware basin acreage carries real drilling upside from active permitting; San Juan basin value is almost entirely trailing production on a decades-long decline. Both are legitimate assets, they just price differently.
Yes, unless your specific lease prohibits them. Most New Mexico leases allow gathering, processing, and compression costs to be netted against the royalty price before you're paid.
Yes, but it's mature and declining rather than growing. Most wells were drilled years ago; new permits are far less common than in the Delaware basin.
Both sit in the Delaware basin and price similarly overall, with value driven by proximity to current permitting and takeaway infrastructure more than which specific county the tract falls in.
Yes, we work through fractional and heirship interests regularly, particularly on older San Juan basin tracts, and can walk you through what New Mexico title requirements apply to your situation.
