Eagle Ford and South Texas Landman Crews
Eagle Ford, Austin Chalk, and Lower Wilcox programs across South Texas run through Spanish and Mexican porciones and leagues, long metes-and-bounds calls in varas, and decades of horizontal retained-acreage severances. When an operator needs a crew to run sovereignty chains, verify held-by-production (HBP) depth intervals, or clear curative ahead of drilling or division orders, post the counties, tract count, and start date on the call sheet below.
Why South Texas title and curative require a specialized crew
Unlike the rectangular section-and-block surveys of West Texas, South Texas counties from Webb and Dimmit northeast through La Salle, McMullen, Live Oak, Karnes, DeWitt, Gonzales, and Lavaca sit inside irregular Spanish and Mexican land grants and early Texas headrights:
- Spanish and Mexican land grants and vara calls: Early conveyances describe boundaries by creek meanders, adjoining ranch owners, and measurements in varas without modern quarter-section calls, requiring careful deed plotting to confirm where each tract sits relative to a proposed horizontal lateral.
- Austin Chalk vs. Eagle Ford vs. Pearsall depth severances: Many tracts were leased in the 1970s through 1990s for Austin Chalk, Buda, or Edwards production. Retained-acreage and horizontal Pugh clauses often severed the Eagle Ford Shale or deeper intervals, or split acreage along older pooled unit boundaries.
- Multi-generational family partitions and NPRI burdens: Partition deeds among ranching families frequently created floating or fixed non-participating royalty interests (NPRIs) and separated executive leasing rights from royalty ownership across multiple tracts.
- Allocation wells and production sharing agreements (PSAs): Where laterals cross two or more existing pooled units or unpooled lease tracts, crews track PSA execution and tract participation decimals alongside the underlying title curative.
What an Eagle Ford and South Texas crew turns over
| Crew lane | Courthouse & agency records worked | Turned over to your land team |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty and supplemental runsheets | County Clerk deed, oil and gas lease, probate, and district court judgment books, plus Texas General Land Office (GLO) archival grant files. | Chronological runsheet in your template with Volume/Page or Instrument Number, dates, grantor/grantee, legal description, and indexed PDF instrument copies. |
| Metes-and-bounds tract plotting | Original grant field notes, partition plats, highway and railroad strip deeds, and survey resurveys. | Plotted tract polygons and gap/overlap notes tying each historical deed description to the modern abstract and drilling unit boundary. |
| HBP and retained-acreage audits | Base leases, pooled unit designations, retained-acreage releases, and Railroad Commission (RRC) Districts 1, 2, and 4 well and proration records. | Leasehold status schedule showing which formations and acreages remain held by production and which intervals are open for leasing. |
| Curative and PSA acquisition | Drilling and division order title opinion requirements, heirship trees, and production sharing agreement packages. | Recorded affidavits of heirship, probate transcripts, NPRI ratifications, and signed PSAs or lease amendments tracked against each opinion requirement. |
Scoping a South Texas crew call
- Counties: For example, Webb, Dimmit, La Salle, McMullen, Frio, Atascosa, Live Oak, Bee, Karnes, DeWitt, Gonzales, Lavaca, Fayette, or Brazos County, Texas.
- Acreage and tract structure: Approximate gross acreage, number of separate parcels, and whether tracts require metes-and-bounds plotting from sovereignty.
- Target formations: Whether the review covers all depths or focuses on Austin Chalk, Upper/Lower Eagle Ford, Buda, or deeper gas intervals.
Other crew guides on the board: Permian Basin title and curative crews, East Texas and Haynesville landman crews, Anadarko and SCOOP/STACK Oklahoma crews, and Division order and lease administration landmen.