Permian Basin Operators: Map Your Territory and Make Every Rep Known Before the Meeting

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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 20, 2026.

I always know I'm really getting into the grime and dirt of the Midland Permian Basin when the sheets at the Hilton where I stay already have sand and dirt in them, even though the staff supposedly cleaned the room. Even the highest-rated hotel, an 8 out of 10, still has dirt and dust from people's work boots in and around the entire room. That's just the reality of doing business in the Permian, and no territory map shows it.

So draw your lines on paper first: who operates where, which districts the permits land in, and which titles each rep has to reach. Then remember who you're drawing them for. The people your reps sell to work in that dust, and every deal reshuffles their names. Split the basin, then make sure each rep is known before he walks in, because a map only tells him where to drive, not whether anyone there knows his name.

The Basin Your Crew Sells Into: Rigs, Permits, and Production

Baker Hughes counted 272 Permian rigs in the week ending October 16, 2026, up from 251 a year earlier. Permits come before rigs, so read them by district: in September 2026 the Railroad Commission issued 323 permits to drill new holes in District 8, the most of any district, against 69 in District 7C and 24 in District 8A, and District 8 was up about 14 percent from September 2025. The EIA's September 2026 forecast has Permian crude averaging 6.8 million barrels a day in 2026, 3% more than in 2025.

Map the Operators: Who Holds the Acreage After the Mergers

As of April 10, 2026, Enverus ranked the top six Permian operators by rig count as ExxonMobil (34.0 rigs), Occidental (20.0), Diamondback (15.8), ConocoPhillips (14.2), EOG (11.8), and Coterra (11.7), counted across the whole basin, as reported by PBOG Magazine.

Then mark what moved. Devon and Coterra completed their all-stock merger on May 7, 2026, and operate as Devon Energy, headquartered in Houston. In August 2026 Devon said it bought 16,300 net acres at the New Mexico federal lease sale, with development planned to start in 2027.

Treat each deal as a coverage job. Foley and Lardner wrote in July 2026 that after an acquisition the buyer typically reviews the service agreements it inherits and consolidates or replaces overlapping vendors (the contract side is in what happens to your MSA when your customer gets acquired). Give one rep both sides of a deal before that review starts, and see whether Sales Navigator is worth it for finding the new names.

Midland Basin Territory: Counties and RRC Districts

July 2026's preliminary Railroad Commission numbers put seven of Texas's top 10 crude counties on or along the Midland Basin, with Martin and Midland at the top. They don't share one district. Martin, Midland, Andrews, Glasscock, and Howard sit in District 8, while Upton and Reagan answer to District 7C in San Angelo, and Dawson, Borden, and Gaines to District 8A. Draw each rep's patch by county and district, and it lines up with the permit reports. The full county list is on the Railroad Commission's district page, and the companies in each town are on the Midland operator map and the Odessa company map.

Delaware Basin and New Mexico Territory

The Texas side of the Delaware (Reeves, Loving, Ward, Pecos, Culberson, and Winkler Counties) sits in District 8 with Midland. In preliminary July 2026 data, Loving ranked fourth in Texas for crude and Reeves first for condensate.

New Mexico needs its own plan. EagleRock Land's 2026 SEC filing puts about 91 rigs in Lea and Eddy Counties in the fourth quarter of 2025. The state's Oil Conservation Division keeps its southeast offices in Hobbs and Artesia, and the BLM's Carlsbad Field Office administers 3 million acres of mineral estate in the southeast. Decide who owns Lea and Eddy before the next deal closes.

Field and Office: The Titles Your Reps Must Reach

Each rep needs a name that reaches the location and the offices he never drives past.

  • The company man is the operator's representative on location, per SLB's glossary. See selling to the company man.
  • The drilling superintendent usually works from a field office over several wells, and the rig-site company man reports to him, per Penn State's petroleum engineering course. See selling to a superintendent.
  • The drilling engineer evaluates vendor performance in EOG's Midland posting from October 2025. See what a drilling engineer does.
  • The completions engineer approves invoices in Oxy's Midland posting from June 2026. See selling to a completion engineer.
  • The production and water engineers handle lift design and run tickets in Permian Resources' Midland postings from June and September 2026. See production engineers and water management.
  • Procurement and supply chain managers are among the people B-P Supply's September 2026 Monahans posting wants its rep to reach. See getting known by supply chain.

Supplier Portals, MSAs, and the ISN Grade

No profile gets a rep past the vendor gate. Every operator sets its own, from Apache's ISNetworld grade to Ovintiv's OpenInvoice registration and ConocoPhillips' GEP portal, and the walk-through is in how to get on an approved vendor list. Foley and Lardner wrote in May 2026 that operators frequently present their standard MSA as non-negotiable (more in what an MSA is).

Clear the gate at the company level before a rep walks in. The name can get him asked for. The paperwork lets him work.

Tighter Prices and Customers Hiring Your People

In the Dallas Fed's third-quarter 2026 survey, the services index for prices received fell to 16.3 from 24.5, while the input cost index stayed high at 60.4. In the second-quarter survey, one services firm put it plainly: "customers are hiring our people."

That line hits a director twice. Good sales people cost real money: a March 2026 recruiter posting for a regional sales manager to lead a Permian sales team out of Midland, employer unnamed, offered a $150,000 to $200,000 base plus a 20 to 45 percent bonus (more on that posting in getting known by supply chain). And when a customer hires one of your people, his relationships go with him. Building his name doesn't change that. While he's on your crew, it puts your company's work under a name buyers can look up. See sales rep turnover and managing a team in a downturn.

Where Your Crew Should Show Up: Next Dates

  • January 21, 2027: Permian Basin Petroleum Association's Top Hand Award Banquet.
  • April 19 to 22, 2027: Southwestern Petroleum Short Course.
  • October 19 to 21, 2027: Permian Basin International Oil Show in Odessa. It runs every other year, so there's no show in 2026.

Which of these, and which Houston shows, earn a crew's time is covered in which trade shows are worth going to.

How to Make Every Rep Known Before the Meeting

Odds are most accounts on your map aren't buying this quarter. Research by John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for the LinkedIn B2B Institute, an older study of B2B buyers in general from about 2021, found companies change service providers about every five years, so roughly 5% are in market in a given quarter. Each rep's job is to be the name the buyer already knows when his turn comes (more in how directors get every rep known).

That's what a crew seat is for. Each rep owns everything we build with him: his profile, his posts, his voice guide, and his own lived experience. The seat is a benefit of the job, and each rep approves every post on his own profile, with no director or legal step in between. If you want one company voice, that's company-page work, and it goes to Unrth, OilMoney's sister shop (see reps' LinkedIn vs the company page).

The ask of each rep is small on purpose. What we've learned working with field guys: they're busy, they go weeks without answering, and they're the only ones who have the stories, photos, and technical detail. So the whole ask is one story dump a quarter and a yes on drafts, and The Warm Walk-In™ turns that into posts in each rep's own voice, on his own profile.

The founder we work with is a fourth-generation oilfield man who founded a service company in the Permian, at a podium in a suit when the job calls for it and in the field the rest of the time. LinkedIn's Social Selling Index ranks him in the top 1% of sales professionals in oil and gas, and every seat on your crew runs the same program he does. Read the full story.

When an Advocacy Tool or an In-House Hire Fits Better

An employee advocacy tool or an in-house marketing hire can cost less across a crew, keeps the messaging with the company, and keeps the audience on the company page when a rep leaves. Federal data put the average annual wage for market research analysts and marketing specialists in the Houston metro at $73,640 in May 2025, before benefits, which made up 30.0 percent of what private employers paid per hour worked in June 2026. On OilMoney, each rep owns his profile and approves every post on it, so his audience stays with him if he leaves. If the company keeping the audience matters more, compare an in-house hire and an advocacy program.

What a Crew Costs

Every crew starts with The Rig-Up, and The Rotation has a six-month minimum for every seat, because a truck stuck in the mud needs traction before it moves.

  • Crew of two: $16,000 for The Rig-Up, then $4,600 a month for The Rotation. Minimum first commitment: $43,600.
  • Crew of three: $24,000, then $6,900 a month. Minimum first commitment: $65,400.
  • 4 to 5 seats: $7,500 once and $2,150 a month, per seat. Minimum first commitment: $20,400 per seat.
  • 6 to 10 seats: $7,000 once and $2,000 a month, per seat. Minimum first commitment: $19,000 per seat.
  • 11 or more: ask us.

Each minimum first commitment is The Rig-Up plus six months of The Rotation, never a yearly price. Details on For Crews.

If you ask us to show one purchase order that came from a post, we can't, and we won't promise one. Each quarter's review reports saves, messages, and meetings. This compounds. It doesn't snap.

Get the Tire-Kick Crew Report

Hand out the map after you've seen how your reps look from the buyer's side.

Send five reps' LinkedIn profiles. Get one page back: how each one shows up to the buyers they're chasing, and where they're getting outpositioned. The gap on paper, before you spend a dollar.

Get the Tire-Kick Crew Report

More on our page for sales directors and the Permian Basin hub.

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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