RRC District 02 (San Antonio): counties, drilling permits and how to watch them
District 02 is one of the 13 oil and gas districts of the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC), the state agency that issues drilling permits. It covers 10 counties and is served by the RRC's San Antonio district office.
What's in District 02
District 02 is a compact district of 10 counties between San Antonio and the Gulf coast, including Victoria, Goliad, Refugio and Calhoun. Five of them, Bee, DeWitt, Karnes, Lavaca and Live Oak, are on the RRC's Eagle Ford county list.
Eagle Ford Shale: a Cretaceous shale that the RRC describes as running from the Mexican border into East Texas within districts 1 through 6, roughly 50 miles wide and 400 miles long, at depths between 4,000 and 12,000 feet. The RRC lists 5 of this district's counties among its affected counties: Bee, DeWitt, Karnes, Lavaca and Live Oak.
Counties in District 02
The RRC's county table assigns these 10 counties to District 02. Each name opens that county in Permit Watch:
Bee · Calhoun · DeWitt · Goliad · Jackson · Karnes · Lavaca · Live Oak · Refugio · Victoria
Recent permit activity
From the RRC's monthly summaries of drilling permits, completions and plugging reports processed, for this district:
| 2026 | Jul | Aug | Sep | 3 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Original drilling permits approved | 47 | 24 | 42 | 113 |
| of which new drills | 45 | 24 | 36 | 105 |
| Holes plugged | 12 | 19 | 19 | 50 |
Statewide, the RRC approved 2,147 original drilling permits in those three months, so District 02 accounted for about 5% (estimate: 113 ÷ 2,147), ranking 6 of the 12 districts the report lists. "Original" permits exclude amended permits; plugging counts are reports processed, not wells plugged that month. Monthly numbers swing, so use them as a sense of scale, not a forecast.
How to watch new permits in District 02
- Permit Watch: pick a county above to see permits from the RRC's daily drilling permit file, filter by survey, abstract, operator or lease, and subscribe to that county's free RSS feed. Permit Watch is new: until its first daily data load runs, county pages show "first data load pending".
- RRC Drilling Permit (W-1) Query: the official search, listed on the RRC's Research Queries page. The RRC asks that it be used by people, not automated tools.
- RRC Public GIS Viewer: a map of wells and permits, on the same Research Queries page.
In the RRC's daily permit file, the district is the one the operator reported on the W-1 application, stored as an internal code (OGA049M manual).
District office
RRC San Antonio office (shared with District 01): 112 E. Pecan Street, Suite 705, San Antonio, TX 78205. Phone 210-227-1313. Email san_antonio@rrc.texas.gov. Source: the RRC Locations page.