Artificial Lift Sales in the Permian Basin: Who Picks the Lift and Where They Meet

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By Amanda Leon, founder of OilMoney.io. Houston-raised, came up in the Houston marketing team of Vallourec, and has run Unrth, a brand and growth studio for oil and gas and industrial companies, since 2017, with her boots on client locations in Midland and Odessa. Last reviewed October 21, 2026.

You're on location next to a production engineer, and the ESP that went in after the frac is starting to struggle. He's already thinking about what that well runs next, and whether you know the life of the well or only the box you sell.

In the Permian, the production engineer usually picks the lift and lives with it after the install. The Midland Basin skews toward ESPs and rod pumps, the Delaware uses more gas lift, and for most operators the first lift isn't the last. Lift people meet monthly at the Petroleum Club of Midland and again at the Southwestern Petroleum Short Course. Be known in both rooms.

Most Permian Wells Change Lift Over Their Life

A 2025 Short Course paper on the lifecycle of Permian wells, written by an operator and a lift company together, says most operators put in an ESP as the first lift and later move to gas lift, rod pumps, or jet lift, while some start on gas lift or rod lift. There's plenty to lift: in a September 10, 2026 note, the EIA forecast that Permian crude output will average 6.8 million barrels a day in 2026, up 3% on 2025.

I came up in Vallourec's Houston marketing team, pulling apart international drilling marketing data, and it was a humbling place to learn the business. It left me with a rule I still use in business, strategy, and problem solving: "sometimes forget what you know." Before I decide what a problem needs, I set aside what I think I already know, and I listen first.

Lift rewards the same habit. If rod pumps are your trade, it's easy to walk up to every well sure of the answer. But when most operators start a well on one lift and move it to another, the engineer is planning a sequence. The rep he wants across the tailgate knows his own lift cold and comes ready to learn the rest, starting with why the ESP came out and what the gas lift on the next lease is doing.

Rigs, Completions, and New Wells Coming to Lift

Each new well a rig drills is a lift decision waiting to happen. For the week ending October 16, 2026, Baker Hughes had 272 rigs running in the Permian: 2 fewer than the week before, and 21 more (about 8 percent) than the 251 counted in the week to October 17, 2025.

Completions are the closer signal, because a completed well is the one heading for its first lift. Diamondback drilled 97 gross wells and completed 168 in the Midland Basin in the second quarter of 2026, for first-half totals of 215 drilled and 315 completed. Over in the Delaware, Permian Resources' 2026 guidance calls for about 250 gross wells turned in line. Each one is a first-lift conversation and, down the road, a lift-change conversation, and the frac and completions crews get there first.

The Operators Behind Permian Production

As of April 10, 2026, Enverus ranked the top Permian operators by rig count, basin-wide: ExxonMobil (34.0), Occidental (20.0), Diamondback (15.8), ConocoPhillips (14.2), EOG (11.8), and Coterra (11.7, before its merger).

  • ExxonMobil posted a Permian record in the second quarter of 2026, more than 1.8 million barrels of oil equivalent a day. As of October 2026, its Permian page says it has drilled and completed 1,000 horizontal wells in the New Mexico Delaware since 2017, with its New Mexico operations mainly in Eddy and Lea Counties.

  • Diamondback Energy produced an average of 1,018 thousand barrels of oil equivalent a day in the second quarter of 2026.

  • Devon Energy closed its merger with Coterra on May 7, 2026. Before the close, its February 2, 2026 merger presentation put the Delaware at over 50% of the combined company's production and cash flow. In August 2026, Devon credited better-than-expected well performance, mainly in the Delaware, and said it paid $2.6 billion at the New Mexico federal lease sale for 16,300 net acres, about 400 locations it plans to begin developing in 2027.

For a lift rep, that's a list of production teams. When Coterra's wells moved under Devon, the engineers who knew your equipment may have landed under new bosses or new vendor lists. Find them before somebody else does.

Midland Basin: More ESPs and Rod Pumps

A Texas Tech paper by Bassel Eissa, published April 9, 2025 for the Short Course, used public data to show the Midland Basin skewing toward ESPs and rod pumps, where wells are shallower and gas-oil ratios lower. The authors say the data lacks operational detail, so treat the split as industry preference rather than a firm conclusion.

The crude piles up here. In preliminary Railroad Commission data for July 2026, Martin County led Texas at 19,833,432 barrels and Midland County came second at 18,418,690, and seven of the state's top 10 crude counties sat on or along the Midland Basin.

Railroad Commission District 8 covers 20 counties, including Martin and Midland on this side and Loving and Reeves to the west. A territory that spans it will likely hear more rod pump and ESP talk at one end and more gas lift at the other.

Midland and Odessa: Where We Have Stood

We have stood on client locations in Midland and Odessa, and for a lift rep these towns reach past their own wells. Diamondback runs its company from Midland, and Permian Resources based its June 2026 opening for a Texas Delaware production engineer in Midland, so the engineer deciding on gas lift for a Delaware well may sit in a Midland office.

Who sits where is on our Midland map and our Odessa map. Use them to plan the windshield time, and remember what a lift rep's name rests on in these towns: installs that ran and call-outs answered.

Delaware Basin and New Mexico: More Gas Lift

The same Texas Tech paper found the Delaware uses more gas lift, which tracks with its deeper wells and higher gas-oil ratios. The Texas side has gas to work with: in preliminary July 2026 data, Reeves County ranked first in Texas for condensate and second for gas, and Loving ranked fourth for crude at 8,079,760 barrels.

In New Mexico, Baker Hughes counted 99 active rigs for the week ending October 9, 2026. The state's gas capture rule, 19.15.27.9 NMAC, requires each operator to capture at least 98% of the natural gas produced from its wells by December 31, 2026. If you sell gas lift or vapor recovery, that date is a fair reason to ask a New Mexico production team where its gas goes. Leave the compliance call to the operator. For the water side, see Permian produced water.

Who Picks the Lift and Who Lives With It

Permian Resources' production engineer opening for its Texas Delaware Basin team, posted June 24, 2026, puts the whole life of the lift in one job: flowback and initial lift install, production surveillance, workover design, chemical programs, and LOE (lease operating expense) stewardship. The engineer designs and troubleshoots gas lift, ESPs, rod pumps, jet pumps, and plunger lift, writes the workover AFEs, and coordinates with the wellsite supervisor and service providers.

So the engineer who picks the lift lives with it. He judges you twice: once when he chooses, and again every time your equipment shows up in his surveillance.

He's not the only door. B-P Supply's September 29, 2026 posting for a business development rep in Monahans, covering rod pumps and TACs among other lines, names production engineers, facilities engineers, and procurement and supply chain managers as the people to reach. The engineer gets a full page in selling to a production engineer, and the rest of the group in selling to a whole buying committee.

Where the Lift Community Meets: First Monday and the Short Course

The First Monday of the Month Artificial Lift Club lives up to its name, gathering at the Petroleum Club of Midland to talk over artificial lift problems and fixes. As of October 17, 2026, lunch was $15, cash at the door, with a sponsoring company and a speaker at each meeting. Check the date before you drive over.

Then there's the Southwestern Petroleum Short Course, next set for April 19 to 22, 2027. It reports average attendance of over 1,300 and exhibit space for more than 90 companies. The lifecycle paper, with an operator and a lift company side by side, was written for it, and it sets the bar.

A production engineer trusts run-life data from wells like his, and a Short Course paper or a forum talk where an operator presents beside you, more than any post. What a post can do is put your name and how you think in front of him before the next First Monday lunch, so you aren't a stranger when the run-life talk starts.

New Logos, Same Wells: Lift Vendor Consolidation

The vendor side keeps merging. Two large lift and chemical vendors combined in July 2025, and in another 2025 deal a fleet of 155 high-pressure gas lift and vapor recovery systems changed hands. Customers merge too. Foley and Lardner wrote in July 2026 that an acquirer typically goes through the oilfield service agreements it inherits and then consolidates, renegotiates, or replaces vendors that overlap.

The wells stay put. The rod string doesn't know whose logo is on the invoice. What the engineer remembers is who explained the last failure straight, so keep that under your own name, where it comes with you through a merger on either side. OCTG and PVF reps fight the same fight; see keeping your name when the logo changes.

The Lift Basics, Answered on One Page

If ESP or rod pump is the question you answer most, it has its own page: ESP vs rod pump, answered once under your own name. When a lift job needs more than a sentence, see explaining a complex oilfield service.

The Warm Walk-In™ runs on one story dump a quarter, typed or spoken from the truck, and turns it into posts in your voice that you approve and own, so engineers can read how you think before you meet. More on our artificial lift sales page and the Permian Basin hub.

A Permian Founder in His Industry's Top 1%

The founder we post for is a fourth-generation oilfield man who founded his own service company in the Permian, and nothing goes out under his name without his yes. From September 15, 2025 to October 19, 2026, his best post reached 58,666 impressions, and LinkedIn's Social Selling Index ranks him in the top 1% of sales professionals in oil and gas. Read the full story.

Before the next lift change on your customer's wells, see what his production engineer finds when he looks you up. Send us your LinkedIn. We'll send back the Bison Walk-Around: five minutes of plain English on what's costing you callbacks and what we'd build. No call. No invoice. We give first.

Get your Bison Walk-Around

Sources and As-Of Dates

The Warm Walk-In™ is an original method created by Amanda Leon and owned by The Valours Creative Innovation LLC.

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