Sell Mineral Rights in Big Spring, TX

Big Spring sits on ground that's been producing since the Spraberry Trend was discovered in the late 1940s, which means your family's interest may have outlived several booms already.

Howard County, with Big Spring as its seat, was ground zero for the Spraberry Trend, discovered in 1948 and once considered one of the largest oil fields in the country by surface area, even though the tight rock made individual wells slow producers for decades. That legacy is why so much of Howard County has old vertical wellbores dotting the land, many still on lease today even after fifty or seventy years.

Modern horizontal drilling changed the math on the Spraberry and the underlying Wolfcamp, turning what used to be a slow, low-volume play into one of the busier corners of the Midland Basin. If you own minerals near Big Spring, you may have both a decades-old vertical lease and a newer horizontal unit touching the same tract.

The Spraberry Trend's Long Tail

Because the Spraberry was drilled so extensively with vertical wells starting in the late 1940s and through the 1950s, Howard County has one of the densest concentrations of legacy wellbores in the Permian. Many are stripper wells now, producing a handful of barrels a day, but some tracts still collect steady if modest royalty from them alongside newer horizontal production.

When you're comparing your interest to a neighbor's, remember that two tracts a half mile apart can have completely different well histories depending on how the original vertical development was spaced back in the 1950s.

Where Horizontal Drilling Fits In

Operators working the Midland Basin have layered horizontal Wolfcamp and Spraberry wells over this older grid, and Howard County has seen real activity in the last decade, though it typically trails the busiest core counties to the south. A tract with a recently permitted or completed horizontal unit is worth a different conversation than one still sitting on decades-old vertical production alone.

Pull your Railroad Commission well records by lease name to see the completion dates on wells touching your tract — a cluster of recent permits nearby is a real signal, an offer letter's vague claim about the area is not.

Chain of Title on Older Howard County Tracts

With production history running back over seventy years in some cases, expect a longer chain of title than in newer plays. Multiple leases, several rounds of heirs, and possibly old pooling agreements from the vertical era can all be part of your tract's record at the Howard County Clerk's office in Big Spring. Get the full history pulled before valuing anything, and clear up any unresolved heirship from earlier generations now rather than after you've agreed to a price.