Every active oil and gas formation and play in New Mexico — Avalon-Bone Spring, Permian Basin, Pictured Clliffs, Morrow, Nw Shelf Perm-Penn Carbonate, San Juan Basin, and more — ranked by well count, with the top operators and primary counties for each.
Refreshed monthly from NMOCD well records. Data current as of 2026-08-12.
Quick answer: The most-targeted oil and gas formations in New Mexico are the Avalon-Bone Spring, Permian Basin, Pictured Clliffs, Morrow and Nw Shelf Perm-Penn Carbonate, led by the Avalon-Bone Spring with 29,827 wells on record. Ranked by well count across 16 tracked formations from New Mexico Oil Conservation Division (NMOCD) well-header records (as of 2026-08-12) and refreshed monthly.
As of 2026-08-12, the most-developed New Mexico formation is the Avalon-Bone Spring with 29,827 wells on record, across 16 tracked formations, per New Mexico Oil Conservation Division (NMOCD) well records.
Top Operators:
Eog Resources (3,585), Devon Energy Production Company (2,548), Oxy (1,770), Cog Operating (1,754), Mewbourne Oil Company (1,566), Xto Energy (1,253), Matador Production Company (1,063), Coterra Energy INC (927), Chevron (695), Riley Permian Operating (602)
Primary counties: Eddy, Lea, Chaves
Top Operators:
Eog Resources (2,744), Devon Energy Production Company (1,844), Mewbourne Oil Company (1,729), Oxy (1,636), Xto Energy (1,435), Permian Resources Operating LLC (1,305), Matador Production Company (1,194), Coterra Energy INC (1,126), Chevron (870), Cog Operating (688)
Primary counties: Lea, Eddy, Chaves, Roosevelt, De Baca
Top Operators:
Hilcorp Energy Company (7,984), Simcoe LLC (1,629), Burlington Resources Oil & Gas Company (968), Morning Star Oil Company (573), Conocophillips Company (496), Enduring Resources (469), Bpx Operating Company (447), Logos Operating (434), High River Resources Operating LLC (279), Black Hills Gas Resources (223)
Primary counties: San Juan, Rio Arriba, Sandoval
Top Operators:
Hilcorp Energy Company (850), Oxy (729), Apache (719), Southwest Royalties (715), Fae Ii Operating LLC (559), Empire New Mexico LLC (539), Eog Resources (537), Chevron (483), Mack Energy (368), Cimarex Energy Company (313)
Primary counties: Lea, Chaves, Eddy, Roosevelt, Otero
Top Operators:
Sep Legacy LLC (1,428), Eog Resources (1,243), Maverick Permian LLC (752), Spur Energy Partners LLC (704), Conocophillips Company (545), Morning Star Oil Company (540), Cog Operating (463), Lh Operating LLC (462), Mack Energy (453), Hilcorp Energy Company (440)
Primary counties: Eddy, Lea, Chaves, Lincoln
Top Operators:
Hilcorp Energy Company (1,124), Dugan Production (1,016), Djr Operating (651), Enduring Resources (482), Logos Operating (271), Epic Energy (238), Morning Star Oil Company (223), Simcoe LLC (216), Dominion Production Company (173), Playa Minerals & Energy (162)
Primary counties: San Juan, Rio Arriba, Mckinley, Sandoval, Valencia
Top Operators:
Hilcorp Energy Company (2,593), Simcoe LLC (550), Logos Operating (485), Burlington Resources Oil & Gas Company (341), Bpx Operating Company (341), Dugan Production (270), Xto Energy (243), Morning Star Oil Company (196), Conocophillips Company (152), Epic Energy (92)
Primary counties: San Juan, Rio Arriba, Mckinley, Sandoval
Top Operators:
Eog Resources (446), Iacx Production LLC (401), Solis Partners LLC (400), Desert Mountain Energy CORP (170), Mckay Oil (68), Slayton Resources (62), Hanson Operating (54), M E W Enterprise (50), Llj Ventures LLC Dba Marker Oil & Gas (36), Grizzly Operating (32)
Primary counties: Chaves, Eddy
Top Operators:
Oxy (782), Bpx Operating Company (93), Breitburn Operating (70), Whiting Petroleum CORP (58), Hess (16), Reliant Exploration And Production (8), Co2 (5), Conley & Associates (4), Kodiak Petroleum (4), Beck Producing Company (3)
Primary counties: Harding, Union, Colfax, Eddy
Top Operators:
Logos Operating (148), Hilcorp Energy Company (136), Advanced Wireless Communications (47), Enduring Resources (41), N M & O Operating Company (41), Rim Operating (33), Energen Resources (32), Dugan Production (29), Bensonmontingreer Drilling (27), High River Resources Operating LLC (24)
Primary counties: Rio Arriba, San Juan
Top Operators:
High River Resources Operating LLC (535), Ep Energy E And P Company (20), Pennzenergy Exp & Production (10), Wapiti Operating (9), Odessa Natural (8), Bpx Operating Company (7), Bennett Petroleum (6), Hng Fossil Fuel Company (5), W E Bakke Jr (4), Sun River Energy (3)
Primary counties: Colfax, Mora
Top Operators:
Scout Energy Management (104), Ram Energy (77), Texaco Exploration And Production (61), Lh Operating LLC (51), Sirgo Operating (31), Oxy (28), Southwest Royalties (17), Legacy Reserves Operating (16), Chevron (12), Conocophillips Company (10)
Primary counties: Lea, Eddy
Top Operators:
High River Resources Operating LLC (315), Ep Energy E And P Company (7), Pennzenergy Exp & Production (3), Wapiti Operating (1)
Primary counties: Colfax
Top Operators:
Enercap (18), Public Lands Exploration (15), Ckg Energy (9), Transpecos Resources (7), Eog Resources (6), Shell Oil Company (6), Moranlavaca LLC (4), Sonoma Energy (4), Mcclellan Oil (4), Bruce A Wilbanks (3)
Primary counties: Guadalupe, De Baca, Quay, Curry, San Miguel
Top Operators:
Kinder Morgan Production (12), Ridgeway Arizona Oil (7), Transocean Oil (4), Shell Oil Company (3), Metano Resources (3), A N Spanel W O Heinze (2), Djr Operating (2), Reeves Brothers Petroleum (2), Hunt Oil Company (1), Cimarex Energy Company (1)
Primary counties: Catron, Luna, Grant, San Juan, Valencia
Top Operators:
Twining Drilling (7), Chaparral Energy (4), Threshold Development Company (3), Jalapeno (3), Primero Operating (2), Heyco Development (2), David V Alcorn (1), Mack Energy (1), Shell Oil Company (1), Pure Energy Operating (1)
Primary counties: Otero, Lincoln, Socorro, Sierra, Dona Ana
Source: New Mexico Oil Conservation Division (NMOCD) 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 New Mexico are the Avalon-Bone Spring, Permian Basin, Pictured Clliffs, Morrow and Nw Shelf Perm-Penn Carbonate, among others. This directory tracks 16 active formations ranked by well count, per New Mexico Oil Conservation Division (NMOCD) records.
The Avalon-Bone Spring has the most wells on record in New Mexico — 29,827 wells, worked by 656 active operators, per NMOCD well-header data. This is a well-count ranking, not a reserves or value ranking.
The most active operators in the Avalon-Bone Spring are EOG Resources, Devon Energy Production Company, Oxy, COG Operating, Mewbourne Oil Company. Each formation card below lists its top operators by well count.
About 8,675 drilling permits were filed across the tracked New Mexico formations in the last 24 months, per NMOCD 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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State: New Mexico
Active formations: 16
Total wells: 117,154
Recent permits: 8,675
Last refresh: 2026-08-12
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