RRC District 7B (Abilene): counties, drilling permits and how to watch them
District 7B 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 Abilene district office.
What's in District 7B
District 7B covers 24 counties of West-Central Texas around Abilene, from Haskell and Stonewall in the north to San Saba and Lampasas in the south, and east to Hood, Parker and Somervell near Fort Worth. Eleven are on the RRC's Barnett Shale list, and Fisher, Nolan and Stonewall are on its Permian Basin list.
Permian Basin: an oil-and-gas-producing area of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico that the RRC says is best represented in its production figures as districts 7C, 08 and 8A, with formations such as the Spraberry, Wolfcamp, Bone Spring, San Andres and Clear Fork. The RRC lists 3 of this district's counties among its affected counties: Fisher, Nolan and Stonewall.
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 11 of this district's counties among its affected counties: Comanche, Coryell, Eastland, Erath, Hamilton, Hood, Palo Pinto, Parker, Shackelford, Somervell and Stephens.
Counties in District 7B
The RRC's county table assigns these 24 counties to District 7B. Each name opens that county in Permit Watch:
Brown · Callahan · Coleman · Comanche · Coryell · Eastland · Erath · Fisher · Hamilton · Haskell · Hood · Jones · Lampasas · Mills · Nolan · Palo Pinto · Parker · San Saba · Shackelford · Somervell · Stephens · Stonewall · Taylor · Throckmorton
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 | 13 | 22 | 16 | 51 |
| of which new drills | 6 | 20 | 14 | 40 |
| Holes plugged | 79 | 70 | 67 | 216 |
Statewide, the RRC approved 2,147 original drilling permits in those three months, so District 7B accounted for about 2% (estimate: 51 ÷ 2,147), ranking 9 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 7B
- 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 Abilene office: 1969 Industrial Blvd., Abilene, TX 79602. Phone 325-692-0404. Email Abilene@rrc.texas.gov. Source: the RRC Locations page.