Barnett Shale

Key numbers

Well counts are shown on two independent bases — rock-evidenced (a formation assignment backed by regulator-reported formation evidence) alongside the total footprint (every well inside the county-based definition). The two overlap heavily, but neither contains the other: rock evidence follows the formation wherever it was drilled, including outside the county lines. See the methodology for why we don’t infer play membership.

Footprint production by year best estimate incl. allocated

Best estimate including allocated and gap-filled volumes; recent periods revise upward as late filings arrive. This series is revision-stable in practice: across data rebuilds spanning 12–19 July 2026 the 2025 annual gas figure moved by less than 0.001%, against the ~1.4% that would be needed to break the every-year decline. Figures are aggregates across the full county footprint — a different population from the rock-evidenced cohort above, not a superset of it.

What the data shows

• The Barnett Shale footprint produced 793 Bcf of natural gas and 7.5 million barrels of oil in 2025 (best estimate including allocated volumes).
• Footprint gas production has fallen 64% from 2.18 Tcf in 2012 to 793 Bcf in 2025 (best estimate including allocated volumes), declining in every year of that span — on a per-day basis as well as an annual one, so 2024's extra leap day does not carry the trend.
• 16,630 wells carry a rock-evidenced Barnett formation assignment — a rock lens. The 27-county North-Central Texas footprint is a separate geographic lens holding 135,014 wells of all formations and all trajectories; the two cohorts overlap heavily but neither contains the other.

The 27-county Barnett footprint (CommoVision definition)

Our county-based supply-region definition: the 9 core Barnett Shale counties plus the surrounding Fort Worth Basin / Bend Arch producing counties. Not an EIA DPR region.