Texas Drilling Permits and Completions Statistics for March 2020

AUSTIN –– The Railroad Commission of Texas issued a total of 744 original drilling permits in March 2020 compared to 1,137 in March 2019. The March 2020 total includes 671 permits to drill new oil or gas wells, six to re-enter plugged well bores and 56 for re-completions of existing well bores.

The breakdown of well types for original drilling permits in March 2020 is 189 oil, 43 gas, 468 oil or gas, 40 injection, and four other permits.

In March 2020, Commission staff processed 1054 oil, 313 gas and 240 injection completions for new drills, re-entries and re-completions, compared to 493 oil, 127 gas, and 43 injection completions in March 2019.

Total well completions processed for 2020 year to date for new drills, re-entries and re-completions are 3,857, compared to 2469 recorded during the same time period in 2019.

Recent Information Technology changes are allowing the Commission to report more detailed data on drilling permits and well completions each month. The information in prior year reports may not correlate exactly to the same results on the new report.  These technological improvements provide more statistics and transparency, and the new report is available on the Commission’s monthly drilling completion summaries web page.

TABLE 1 – March 2020 TEXAS OIL AND GAS New DRILLING PERMITS AND COMPLETIONS BY RAILROAD COMMISSION OF TEXAS DISTRICT*

*A district map is available on the Railroad Commission of Texas website