Field Intelligence · Basin Analysis

America's producing basins, mapped

Every deal you'll ever be pitched sits in one of these basins — and the rock decides more about your returns than the sponsor's spreadsheet does. Hover a basin for the short version; click through for the full analysis: geology, producing intervals, well economics, and the studies that matter.

By Casmir Mason — CFO, Pheasant oil & gas entities
Updated July 2026
Sources: EIA · USGS · state commissions
U.S. Lower-48 producing basins Hover for the overview · click for the full analysis

Basin outlines are simplified for readability — see each analysis for precise extent maps. Built from EIA and USGS province boundaries.

Eleven basins covered

Full basin analyses

Permian Basin

West Texas & New Mexico. Half of U.S. crude output. Stacked pay from Spraberry through Wolfcamp and Bone Spring — the deepest inventory in the world.

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Eagle Ford Shale

South Texas arc with oil, condensate, and dry-gas windows. Gulf Coast pricing, refrac renaissance, and the Austin Chalk overlay.

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Williston Basin

North Dakota & Montana. The Bakken and Three Forks benches — mature, consolidated, and still moving a million barrels a day.

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Appalachian Basin

Marcellus & Utica. The largest gas field in America — low breakevens, pipeline-constrained, and newly LNG-relevant.

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Haynesville Shale

Louisiana & East Texas. Deep, hot, high-pressure gas sitting next door to Gulf Coast LNG — the demand story of the decade.

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Anadarko Basin

Western Oklahoma's SCOOP & STACK. Woodford, Meramec, and Springer — liquids-rich geology with a private-operator rebound.

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DJ Basin

Colorado's Niobrara & Codell. Chevron's post-PDC stronghold — strong rock, four-mile laterals, and real regulatory risk.

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Powder River Basin

Wyoming's emerging horizontal oil play — Niobrara, Turner, and Mowry benches, big federal-land footprint, a delineation cycle behind the DJ.

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San Juan Basin

The legacy NM/CO gas giant under Hilcorp — shallow declines, cheap PDP, Fruitland coal seam gas, and Mancos oil upside.

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Uinta & Piceance

Utah's waxy crude riding rail to Gulf refiners, next to Colorado's Williams Fork tight gas. Consolidators' country.

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Barnett Shale

The shale that started it all — a mature Fort Worth Basin gas annuity with refrac upside and urban-drilling quirks.

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