Sell Mineral Rights in New Mexico

New Mexico is really two mineral markets wearing one state name, and confusing them is the fastest way to leave money on the table or overpay for something you don't yet own.

Lea and Eddy counties sit in the Delaware Basin, the deepest and among the most actively drilled parts of the entire Permian, where multi-well pads, stacked-bench development, and consistently strong lease bonuses have made this some of the highest-valued mineral acreage in the country. Four hundred miles northwest, the San Juan Basin is a different world entirely: a mature, largely gas-and-CBM field with decades of production history, gentle decline, and very little new drilling. An owner in Lea County and an owner in San Juan County are, in almost every practical sense, participating in two separate industries, and the valuation approach for each starts from a different question.

Delaware Basin: Pricing Around What's Below the Surface

In Lea and Eddy counties, the number one variable goes beyond whether you're in an active unit, it comes down to how many benches an operator can realistically develop under your acreage. The Delaware Basin's stacked pay, Bone Spring, Wolfcamp, Avalon, and others, means a single spacing unit can support multiple horizontal wells at different depths over a period of years, which is why comps here carry a premium over almost anywhere else we work. That said, the premium isn't uniform: a tract already fully developed across its benches has less remaining upside than one an operator has only begun to touch, even if both show similar current production, and any honest valuation has to account for how much of that stacked potential is already extracted versus still ahead.

Because activity is dense, comps here tend to be tighter and more current than in slower states, recent trades in the same section carry real weight, and a number that was accurate eighteen months ago can already be stale given how quickly operators have moved through parts of Lea and Eddy counties.

San Juan Basin: Pricing a Mature, Slow-Decline Asset

San Juan is the opposite case. Most production here comes from wells that have been on stream for years, sometimes decades, with coalbed methane and conventional gas that declines slowly and predictably once past the early years. There's little new drilling to speak of, so valuation leans almost entirely on the production history itself: how long has the well been paying, how stable has the volume been, and how does the current net price after gathering deductions compare to a year ago. It's a straightforward income calculation more than a speculative one, and owners here often find the number is smaller than a Permian neighbor's but far more predictable.

Pooled Units and Non-Consent Interests

New Mexico's forced-pooling framework means you can end up included in a spacing unit you didn't lease into voluntarily, and how that happened affects your position. An owner who consented and negotiated their own royalty terms is in a different spot than one force-pooled into a non-consent penalty structure, which can reduce near-term payout even though the underlying interest is the same size. If you're not sure which situation applies to you, your division order or the pooling order itself, available from the Oil Conservation Division, will spell it out.

Getting to a Number

Send your division order or lease, the county, and if you have it, the well or unit name. Delaware Basin interests move fast enough that we'll check current activity before quoting anything; San Juan interests we'll price primarily off your production history. Either way you'll get a range with the reasoning attached, not a flat figure with no explanation.

Federal Minerals and BLM Leasing in New Mexico

A substantial share of both Lea and Eddy county acreage sits on federal leases administered by the Bureau of Land Management, alongside state trust minerals managed separately by the New Mexico State Land Office, and each follows its own royalty rate schedule and permitting timeline distinct from a privately negotiated fee lease. Knowing which category applies to your specific tract matters before comparing your offer to a neighbor's, since fee, state, and federal minerals are not interchangeable for valuation purposes even sitting in the same section.

San Juan Basin ownership tends to run more uniformly through fee and private lease arrangements, though some federal and tribal interests exist there as well, particularly toward the basin's western edge near the Navajo Nation boundary.