Texas Drilling Permits and Completions Statistics for August 2020

AUSTIN –– The Railroad Commission of Texas issued a total of 451 original drilling permits in August 2020 compared to 960 in August 2019. The August 2020 total includes 377 permits to drill new oil or gas wells, seven to re-enter plugged well bores, and 51 for re-completions of existing well bores.

The breakdown of well types for original drilling permits in August 2020 is 141 oil, 33 gas, 224 oil or gas, 34 injection, and 19 other permits.

In August 2020, Commission staff processed 1,007 oil, 211 gas and 197 injection completions for new drills, re-entries and re-completions, compared to 446 oil, 103 gas, and 29 injection completions in August 2019.

Total well completions processed for 2020 year to date for new drills, re-entries and re-completions are 10,804 compared to 6,327 recorded during the same 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 – AUGUST 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 here.