Texas Railroad Commission (RRC)

The Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) is the state agency that regulates oil and gas drilling, production, and pipeline operations in Texas. Despite the name — a relic of its 1891 origins regulating railroads — RRC today is primarily an energy regulator. It is the Texas counterpart to oil-and-gas regulatory commissions in PLSS states like the Oklahoma Corporation Commission or the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission.

RRC filings use TXSS legal descriptions for every well location, drilling permit, and production filing — referenced by survey and abstract, not by township and range.

What RRC Does

RRC's primary functions:

• Drilling permits — Operators file Form W-1 with RRC before drilling any well
• Well headers — RRC maintains the official location of every active and historical well in Texas
• Production reporting — Monthly production filings for every well
• Pipeline safety — Surface and underground pipeline regulation
• Spacing rules — Field-by-field rules for well spacing and density

For TXSS work, the well-header dataset is the most useful — it links every Texas well to a specific survey + abstract.

RRC Well Location Format

An RRC well location is specified as footage from survey lines within a named survey and abstract:

660 FNL, 660 FEL, T.J. Borden Survey, Abs. 89, Upton County, Texas

This reads: 660 feet from the North Line, 660 feet from the East Line of the T.J. Borden Survey (abstract 89) in Upton County. The footage call is measured from the boundaries of the survey itself — not from a section line, the way PLSS footage calls work.

Equivalent abbreviations:

• FNL — From North Line
• FSL — From South Line
• FEL — From East Line
• FWL — From West Line

The Four RRC Regions

RRC divides Texas into four oil-and-gas-producing regions, each tending to use a different TXSS shape for its primary land descriptions:

These regional patterns reflect when and how the land was originally surveyed and granted — railroad blocks in the West, Spanish/Mexican grants in the South, small-holding abstracts in the East.

RRC vs. GLO

GLO and RRC are sometimes confused. They are two different Texas agencies:

A typical Texas oil and gas project touches both agencies: GLO records establish the survey boundaries; RRC filings establish the well location and production within those boundaries.

Working with RRC Data

Township America's Pro+ Texas map overlays surface RRC well headers inside or near any abstract — a visual way to spot the wells associated with a given parcel without leaving the web app.

For broader Texas land context, see Texas Legal Land Description Guide.