Oil and gas companies in Texas: the producers, the places and the numbers

This report is for anyone building a picture of the Texas oil and gas industry: job seekers, mineral owners and investors, companies choosing a contractor or partner, and B2B sellers whose customers are producers, drillers, service companies or refiners.

Texas oil and gas in Census data

County Business Patterns 2023 counts four industry codes across the state of Texas: NAICS 211 (Oil and Gas Extraction), 213111 (Drilling Oil and Gas Wells), 213112 (Support Activities for Oil and Gas Operations) and 324110 (Petroleum Refineries).

Support contractors (well servicing, cementing, wireline, water handling, site work) are 60% of the establishments and 58% of the jobs. Producers pay the most per head, which fits their office-heavy mix of engineering, land and finance work.

How big they are

In broader bands, 5,169 have 1 to 19 employees, 1,142 have 20 to 99 and 359 have 100 or more. Two establishments fall in size cells the Census Bureau doesn't publish (it releases a cell only when it holds at least three). More than half the state's establishments have fewer than five employees.

Where they are

County figures from the same 2023 data and codes, for the ten counties with the most establishments:

Midland County's mix is telling: 518 support establishments with 20,072 employees, against 243 producers with 4,783. Permian field work is largely done by contractors.

The largest producers, from state records

The Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) publishes every operator's annual production. For 2025, these were the top ten by oil and condensate, under the operator names the commission uses:

Statewide, operators reported 2,043,291,241 barrels. The top 10 produced 46.0%, the top 25 69.0%, the top 50 83.4% and the top 100 93.1%; 3,020 operators reported some oil or condensate. Many listed operators are subsidiaries of larger public companies, so check the parent in the company's annual report before you treat two names as two customers.

Where operators are based

Joining the 2025 production files to the commission's operator directory (data as of July 2026) shows where producing operators keep their address:

Count and volume tell different stories. Graham (126 producing operators), Wichita Falls (86) and Kilgore (70) are home to many small operators, while Dallas and Fort Worth weigh more in gas than in oil. For a closer look at the largest center, see the report on oil and gas companies in Houston.

What the counts leave out

Census figures count establishments with paid employees, not companies, and exclude the self-employed. Corporate head offices are published under management of companies (NAICS 55), not oil and gas, so Houston, Dallas and Midland headquarters are undercounted. Pipelines, gas processing and petroleum wholesale have other codes. Employment is a single week in March 2023, and drilling activity has moved since. The RRC files cover operators producing in Texas, wherever they're based, and an address in the directory is a mailing address, not proof of a head office.

Finding and vetting operators and contractors

In the July 2026 directory, 5,327 organizations had an active P-5 status, 493 an active extension and 1,795 were delinquent. Before you sign a contract, lease or offer with an operator, confirm its status is active and look at its production trend. A fresh drilling permit is the clearest sign a company is about to spend.

Selling to Texas oil and gas companies

Illustrative example. The seller and its assumptions are invented; the counts are Census 2023 data.

Caprock Fleet (caprock.example) sells telematics and dashcams for service-company trucks. Midland and Ector counties have 742 support-activity establishments employing 29,120 people, about 39 per location. Assume a third are branches of national firms that buy fleet technology centrally: that leaves about 495 locally run yards. Two contacts each (owner or district manager, and the HSE manager) gives 990 people. At a 4% reply rate that's about 40 conversations; if one in five leads to a pilot on a few trucks, 8 pilots. Track drilling permits by county, because new rigs mean new trucks. For the method behind the list, see how to build a prospect list. At this scale, Bebop can find the yards that match your description and research each one before you call.

Subject: Your trucks in [county]

Hi [first name],

I saw [company] is hiring [role, e.g. CDL drivers] out of the [city] yard, and [operator] has filed [number] new permits nearby this month.

More crews on the road usually means more miles nobody is watching. We fit [number] trucks in a day and send your HSE manager one weekly report on speeding and hard braking.

Would a pilot on five trucks be worth a 15-minute call on [day]?

[Your name]

Next step: pick the accounts in this market that match your offer with the ideal customer profile template.