Oil and gas companies in Dallas-Fort Worth: the offices, the wells and how to find both

This report is for people researching oil and gas employers and partners in Dallas-Fort Worth, investors and analysts sizing the local industry, and B2B sellers whose customers are operators and oilfield service companies.

Oil and gas in Dallas-Fort Worth, in Census data

The figures cover the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX Metro Area (CBSA 19100) and four industry codes: NAICS 211 (Oil and Gas Extraction), 213111 (Drilling Oil and Gas Wells), 213112 (Support Activities for Oil and Gas Operations) and 324110 (Petroleum Refineries). Source: US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023.

No petroleum refinery establishments appear in the metro's data. The extraction figures are what you'd expect of a headquarters town: small offices of geologists, engineers, landmen and finance staff, paid well above field rates. Support firms, from well services to water hauling, employ the most people.

How big they are

The classes from 20 employees up, and the 20 to 99 and 100-or-more bands, are withheld by the Census Bureau to protect confidentiality for the four codes combined. In all, 652 establishments have 1 to 19 employees. The industry rows fill in most of the rest: at least 57 locations have 20 to 49 employees, 25 have 50 to 99, 21 have 100 to 249 and 3 have 250 to 499.

The offices and the wells

Establishment figures are Census County Business Patterns; "withheld" means withheld by the Census Bureau to protect confidentiality. Well counts are the Railroad Commission of Texas's regular producing gas wells by county, the latest published, as of February 2025.

The five Barnett Shale counties (Wise, Tarrant, Johnson, Denton and Parker) hold 14,520 producing gas wells, about 15% of the 98,051 in Texas. Johnson County shows the field pattern: only 30 establishments, but 1,130 employees, an average of 38 each, against 13 in Dallas County. Oil is minor here: Wise County, the largest, has 302 regular producing oil wells.

Headquarters in Dallas-Fort Worth

The Dallas Regional Chamber's 2026 economic development guide lists the Fortune 1000 companies headquartered in the metro. Those in oil and gas are Energy Transfer (#53, pipelines), HF Sinclair (#171, refining), Matador Resources (#826, exploration and production) and Range Resources (#907, natural gas), and its list of Forbes' largest private companies includes Hunt Consolidated/Hunt Oil. Fortune assigns headquarters by the principal executive office in SEC filings. A headquarters here doesn't mean operations here: there are no refineries in the metro, and a producer's acreage can be in other basins entirely; its 10-K says where.

What the counts leave out

County Business Patterns counts establishments with paid employees, not companies, and excludes the self-employed, such as independent consultants. Corporate head offices are often classified under management of companies (NAICS 55), so Dallas headquarters are undercounted. Pipelines (35 crude and gas pipeline establishments in the metro), gas processing and fuel wholesale have other codes. Employment is the week of March 12, 2023.

Finding and checking companies

1. Search the Railroad Commission's Organization (P-5) query. Every operator regulated by its Oil and Gas Division must file a P-5 organization report each year, so status and address are public.
2. Pull production by operator and county from the commission's production data to see who actually runs wells in the Barnett counties.
3. Read SEC filings for public companies: the 10-K names basins, acreage and capital plans.
4. For service companies, ask for safety statistics, insurance certificates and the operators they currently work for, and call one.

Timing: what the Dallas Fed survey says

The Dallas Fed Energy Survey asks oil and gas firms in Texas, northern Louisiana and southern New Mexico about their business each quarter. In the third quarter of 2026 (125 firms responded, 83 E&P and 42 services, 16 to 24 September):

Positive readings mean more firms reported an increase than a decrease. For sellers, the message is that producers are expanding and gas output is rising, while service firms face high costs and a flat outlook: pitch E&P offices on growth, and service companies on saving money.

Selling to Dallas-Fort Worth oil and gas companies

Illustrative example. The seller and its prices are invented; the well counts are Railroad Commission data.

Cross Timbers Leak Survey (crosstimbers.example) runs optical gas imaging surveys at well sites. It pulls the operators with producing gas wells in the five Barnett counties from the commission's production data, keeps the 40 largest by well count and finds the production superintendent and EHS manager at each: 80 contacts. At a 7% reply rate that's about 6 conversations; one contract to survey 300 wells quarterly at $175 a well is $210,000 a year. Bebop can find operators that match a description like this and research each account. To reach the right person, see how to find decision makers.

Subject: Leak surveys for your [county] wells

Hi [first name],

[Company] operates about [number] producing gas wells in [county], by the Railroad Commission's records.

We survey well sites with optical gas imaging and send each site's report, with video, within [days], so your team fixes what we find on its own schedule.

Would it help to price one quarter's survey on your [county] wells?

[Your name]

Local sources

Next step: compare Dallas with the state's largest oil and gas center in the report on oil and gas companies in Houston.