RRC District 05 (Henderson): counties, drilling permits and how to watch them
District 05 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 24 counties and is served by the RRC's Henderson district office.
What's in District 05
District 05 runs through North-Central and East Texas, including the Dallas-Fort Worth core counties of Dallas and Tarrant, and south through McLennan, Limestone and Robertson. Six of its counties (Bosque, Dallas, Ellis, Hill, Johnson, Tarrant) are on the RRC's Barnett Shale list, and Leon and Robertson are on its Eagle Ford 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 2 of this district's counties among its affected counties: Leon and Robertson.
Barnett Shale: one of the largest onshore natural gas fields in the United States, designated by the RRC as the Newark, East (Barnett Shale) field and lying in districts 5, 7B and 9. The RRC lists 6 of this district's counties among its affected counties: Bosque, Dallas, Ellis, Hill, Johnson and Tarrant.
Counties in District 05
The RRC's county table assigns these 24 counties to District 05. Each name opens that county in Permit Watch:
Bosque · Collin · Dallas · Delta · Ellis · Falls · Fannin · Freestone · Henderson · Hill · Hopkins · Hunt · Johnson · Kaufman · Lamar · Leon · Limestone · McLennan · Navarro · Rains · Robertson · Rockwall · Tarrant · Van Zandt
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 | 9 | 9 | 16 | 34 |
| of which new drills | 3 | 4 | 11 | 18 |
| Holes plugged | 12 | 4 | 14 | 30 |
Statewide, the RRC approved 2,147 original drilling permits in those three months, so District 05 accounted for about 2% (estimate: 34 ÷ 2,147), ranking 10 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 05
- 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 Henderson office (shared with District 06): 100 Bane Blvd, Henderson, TX 75652. Phone 903-655-1840. Email kilgore@rrc.texas.gov. Source: the RRC Locations page.