RRC District 8A (Lubbock): counties, drilling permits and how to watch them
District 8A 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 21 counties and is served by the RRC's Lubbock district office.
What's in District 8A
District 8A covers 21 counties of the South Plains around Lubbock, from Bailey and Cochran on the New Mexico line east to Kent, King and Cottle, and south to Gaines, Dawson and Borden. All 21 are on the RRC's 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 21 of this district's counties among its affected counties: Bailey, Borden, Cochran, Cottle, Crosby, Dawson, Dickens, Floyd, Gaines, Garza, Hale, Hockley, Kent, King, Lamb, Lubbock, Lynn, Motley, Scurry, Terry and Yoakum.
Counties in District 8A
The RRC's county table assigns these 21 counties to District 8A. Each name opens that county in Permit Watch:
Bailey · Borden · Cochran · Cottle · Crosby · Dawson · Dickens · Floyd · Gaines · Garza · Hale · Hockley · Kent · King · Lamb · Lubbock · Lynn · Motley · Scurry · Terry · Yoakum
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 | 52 | 56 | 44 | 152 |
| of which new drills | 37 | 20 | 24 | 81 |
| Holes plugged | 68 | 70 | 80 | 218 |
Statewide, the RRC approved 2,147 original drilling permits in those three months, so District 8A accounted for about 7% (estimate: 152 ÷ 2,147), ranking 4 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 8A
- 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 Lubbock office: 6302 Iola Avenue, Suite 600, Lubbock, TX 79424. Phone 806-698-6509. Email DOLubbock8A@rrc.texas.gov. Source: the RRC Locations page.