RRC District 06 (Henderson): counties, drilling permits and how to watch them
District 06 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 23 counties and is served by the RRC's Henderson district office.
What's in District 06
District 06 covers 23 East Texas counties along the Louisiana and Arkansas lines, from Bowie in the northeast corner to Angelina and Sabine in the Piney Woods. Ten of them are on the RRC's Haynesville/Bossier county list. The counties of the East Texas Field are assigned to District 06 in the RRC's county table, but leases in that field are filed under the separate District 6E; see the 6E page.
Haynesville/Bossier Shale: a gas-producing shale more than 10,000 feet deep in East Texas (District 6) and western Louisiana; in 2009 the RRC consolidated the Haynesville/Bossier field discoveries in this area into the Carthage (Haynesville Shale) field. The RRC lists 10 of this district's counties among its affected counties: Angelina, Gregg, Harrison, Marion, Nacogdoches, Panola, Rusk, Sabine, San Augustine and Shelby.
Counties in District 06
The RRC's county table assigns these 23 counties to District 06. Each name opens that county in Permit Watch:
Anderson · Angelina · Bowie · Camp · Cass · Cherokee · Franklin · Gregg · Harrison · Houston · Marion · Morris · Nacogdoches · Panola · Red River · Rusk · Sabine · San Augustine · Shelby · Smith · Titus · Upshur · Wood
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 | 51 | 35 | 47 | 133 |
| of which new drills | 44 | 29 | 43 | 116 |
| Holes plugged | 48 | 22 | 36 | 106 |
Statewide, the RRC approved 2,147 original drilling permits in those three months, so District 06 accounted for about 6% (estimate: 133 ÷ 2,147), ranking 5 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 06
- 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 05): 100 Bane Blvd, Henderson, TX 75652. Phone 903-655-1840. Email kilgore@rrc.texas.gov. Source: the RRC Locations page.