Occidental Pushes Midland Exploration into Strawn, Wichita-Albany

Occidental Petroleum is flexing its exploration muscles, landing several laterals in emerging benches around the Midland Basin.

The E&P is stepping beyond the Midland’s flagship Spraberry and Wolfcamp benches to accelerate development in alternative zones, according to an analysis of Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) filings.

Emerging areas of focus for Oxy in the Midland Basin include the Wichita-Albany, Strawn and Atoka zones. Oxy is also the leading developer testing the Permian’s gassy Barnett Shale bench.

The company plans to boost development of secondary benches across its Permian Basin position this year, Oxy management said in fourth-quarter earnings this spring.

Wichita-Albany

Oxy spud a horizontal well targeting the Wichita-Albany bench in January, RRC data show.

Blanche #1H in northwest Ector County, Texas, was permitted to a vertical depth of 9,000 ft. Wichita-Albany is typically found at depths of between 6,000 ft and 9,000 ft across the basin.

No production data is associated with Oxy’s new Wichita-Albany well. Texas and most states’ rules allow producers to “tight hole” post-completion well results for six months before making the data public.

But Oxy’s well is directly offset to the north by several Wichita-Albany horizontals operated by Maverick Natural Resources.

Maverick drilled four of its own Wichita-Albany horizontals in 2023 and 2024. The company also operates several more Wichita-Albany horizontals originally completed by ConocoPhillips between 2016 and 2020, data show.

Maverick produced 611 bbl/d of crude and 3.86 MMcf/d of casinghead gas from Wichita-Albany in February, per RRC figures. Earlier this year, Maverick was acquired by Diversified Energy for $1.3 billion.

Bryan Bottoms, director of geology for Detring Energy Advisors, said Oxy’s well is sited right up against the flank of the Central Basin Platform (CBP) and the Andector Field. The conventional Andector oilfield was discovered in 1946.

“It will be very interesting to see as that result comes in and what [Oxy does] with that, and if they’re able to extrapolate that further into some of their other acreage across the [CBP],” Bottoms said May 15 at Hart Energy’s SUPER DUG 2025 Conference & Expo.

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Strawn, Atoka zones

The Strawn play is more associated with the Eastern Shelf than the core Midland Basin. Independent operators have been actively developing the Strawn play using horizontal drilling techniques since an initial discovery in Scurry County, Texas, in 2015.

RRC data show Oxy is delineating the Strawn and the underlying Atoka bench in more core areas of the Midland Basin.

Oxy picked up two wells landed in Strawn and Atoka through its $12 billion acquisition of CrownRock, which closed last August. The wells are in the Dewey Lake Field in Glasscock County, Texas.

Princeton #201TK, completed in January 2024, landed in Atoka at a vertical depth of 10,448 ft. The Atoka well (9,500-ft lateral) IP’d at 259 bbl and 1.54 MMcf over 24 hours on Feb. 25, 2024.

The CrownRock Atoka well has produced 48,695 bbl and 402.72 MMcf of natural gas since coming online last January through February 2025, according to the most recent RRC data.

Princeton A #202ST, completed in February 2024, landed in Strawn at a vertical depth of around 10,400 ft. The Strawn well (9,500-ft lateral) IP’d at 415 bbl of crude and 1.42 MMcf of gas.

The Glasscock County Strawn well has produced over 90,000 bbl and nearly 618 MMcf of gas since coming online in February 2024, per RRC data.

“Operators are continuing to deepen the horizons of where they’re looking and looking at some of these other zones that may add future inventory,” Bottoms said.

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