Every active oil and gas formation and play in Mississippi — Mid-Gulf Coast Basin, Austin Chalk, Floyd-Neal, Black Warrior Basin, and more — ranked by well count, with the top operators and primary counties for each.
Refreshed monthly from MSOGB well records. Data current as of 2026-08-12.
Quick answer: The most-targeted oil and gas formations in Mississippi are the Mid-Gulf Coast Basin, Austin Chalk, Floyd-Neal and Black Warrior Basin, led by the Mid-Gulf Coast Basin with 14,212 wells on record. Ranked by well count across 4 tracked formations from Mississippi State Oil & Gas Board (MSOGB) well-header records (as of 2026-08-12) and refreshed monthly.
As of 2026-08-12, the most-developed Mississippi formation is the Mid-Gulf Coast Basin with 14,212 wells on record, across 4 tracked formations, per Mississippi State Oil & Gas Board (MSOGB) well records.
Top Operators:
Denbury Onshore (1,689), Tellus Operating Group (667), Southern Community (640), Highmark Energy Operating (401), Venture Oil & Gas (330), Formentera Operations LLC (307), Humble Oil And Refining Company (224), Gulf Oil (177), Eog Resources (162), Petrotx Operating LLC (130)
Primary counties: Jasper, Wayne, Jefferson Davis, Clarke, Jones
Top Operators:
Denbury Onshore (429), Humble Oil And Refining Company (252), Callon Petroleum Company (227), Sun Oil Company (208), Black Jack Oil (175), Hughes & New Oil Company (173), D A Biglane Operating Company (169), Petrotx Operating LLC (161), Encana Oil & Gas (151), Seriopunches Oil Company (115)
Primary counties: Adams, Wilkinson, Franklin, Amite, Pike
Top Operators:
Pruet Production Company (84), Southern Community (77), Gibraltar Energy Company (70), Dallas Production (63), Nason Howard G (22), Moonhinestigrett Operating CO INC (20), Browning & Welch (12), Scorpion Oil & Gas (11), Caledonia Energy Partners (10), Roundtree & Assoc (10)
Primary counties: Monroe, Lowndes, Chickasaw, Clay, Calhoun
Top Operators:
Gibraltar Energy Company (56), Total E And P (36), Monroe Gas Storage Company (32), Scorpion Oil & Gas (29), Moonhinestigrett Operating CO INC (28), Pruet Production Company (21), Continental Resources (17), Centurion Resources (17), Atmos Energy CORP Midtex Div (15), Itawamba Industrial Gas Company (14)
Primary counties: Monroe, Itawamba, Chickasaw, Lee, Oktibbeha
Source: Mississippi State Oil & Gas Board (MSOGB) well-header records, aggregated by primary play / interpreted formation / basin.
Threshold: Only formations with at least 50 wells are listed (excludes one-off wildcat plays).
Why it matters: Knowing which formation underlies your tract — and which operators are actively drilling that formation — is the foundation of mineral-rights valuation. Stacked-pay plays carry materially different upside than mature single-bench plays.
Refresh cadence: Monthly. Data current as of 2026-08-12.
Cite this dataset
Permanently archived and citable via a DOI on Zenodo (CERN), under a CC BY 4.0 license. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21442884 · View on Zenodo
License & attribution: This data is licensed CC BY 4.0. You are free to share and adapt it, including commercially, provided you credit “Buckhead Energy” and link back to this page or the DOI above.
The most-developed formations and plays in Mississippi are the Mid-Gulf Coast Basin, Austin Chalk, Floyd-Neal and Black Warrior Basin. This directory tracks 4 active formations ranked by well count, per Mississippi State Oil & Gas Board (MSOGB) records.
The Mid-Gulf Coast Basin has the most wells on record in Mississippi — 14,212 wells, worked by 1,787 active operators, per MSOGB well-header data. This is a well-count ranking, not a reserves or value ranking.
The most active operators in the Mid-Gulf Coast Basin are Denbury Onshore, Tellus Operating Group, Southern Community, Highmark Energy Operating, Venture Oil & Gas. Each formation card below lists its top operators by well count.
About 891 drilling permits were filed across the tracked Mississippi formations in the last 24 months, per MSOGB records — a rough measure of where new activity is concentrated.
Your deed and county records determine which formations your mineral rights cover; a tract can own multiple stacked formations. Buckhead Energy can check the geology under your tract against current well and permit data and put a free, no-obligation written offer in writing — this directory is informational only, not a valuation.
The geology under your tract drives your valuation. Get a free written offer based on your specific formation and county.
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Sell Your Mississippi Mineral Rights
State: Mississippi
Active formations: 4
Total wells: 26,969
Recent permits: 891
Last refresh: 2026-08-12
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