Sharon Ridge is really two fields stacked on each other. Shallow production from Clearfork and San Andres carbonates dates to the earliest Scurry County drilling in the 1920s, and the Railroad Commission still names those reservoirs by depth — Sharon Ridge (1700) and Sharon Ridge (2800, S) on the Mitchell side, Sharon Ridge (Clear Fork) on the Scurry side. Far below sits the Canyon Reef at roughly 6,700 feet, part of the Horseshoe Atoll, unitized alongside SACROC and Diamond M and tied into the Permian CO2 system.
Source: Texas Railroad Commission production filings, aggregated across RRC field designations 82710166, 82710498, 82710664, 82710750. Reported volumes lag the calendar by several months.
Scurry County oil begins around 1923, when shallow San Andres production was established in the Sharon Ridge area; a state historical marker records that those early shallow discoveries were eventually penetrated by more than two thousand wells. The shallow Sharon Ridge field was developed in the early 1920s by James Everett McKanna. A specific 1923 discovery well is not documented, and a contemporaneous newspaper account marking a Sharon Ridge pool anniversary in 1940 suggests at least one distinct pool was found much later.
The deep story starts in 1948, when four widely dispersed wells found the Canyon Reef at roughly 6,500 feet beneath Scurry County. The reef was quickly recognized as a single connected system that competitive drilling would waste, and by 1951 the operators had organized four units — SACROC, Diamond M, Sharon Ridge Canyon and Cogdell — that replaced what one contemporary account called haphazard production of the Scurry reef. The Sharon Ridge Canyon Unit unitization agreement was approved around 1951.
The Sharon Ridge Canyon Unit was engineered as a pressure-maintenance project using fresh surface water injected on a peripheral pattern, documented in a 1961 Journal of Petroleum Technology paper. Tertiary recovery came much later. Sharon Ridge is a delivery point on the Canyon Reef Carriers and Val Verde CO2 system alongside SACROC, Cogdell and Reinecke, and Kinder Morgan reports a non-operated working interest in a roughly 13,700-acre Sharon Ridge Unit in production since 1997. Operatorship across the field has varied.
The shallow Sharon Ridge reservoirs are Permian Clearfork and San Andres carbonates so consistently mapped by depth that the Railroad Commission named the fields after their approximate pay depths — 1700 and 2800 on the Mitchell County side. The deep pay is entirely different: Pennsylvanian Canyon Reef limestone at roughly 6,700 feet, part of the Horseshoe Atoll, the enormous arc of carbonate buildups that also hosts SACROC, Cogdell and Kelly-Snyder. Two reservoirs, two thousand feet apart, with independent pressure systems and completely different recovery mechanics.
The Canyon Unit began as a water pressure-maintenance project on a peripheral injection pattern using fresh surface water, which was standard practice for Horseshoe Atoll reefs in the 1950s. CO2 came later. Sharon Ridge is connected to the Canyon Reef Carriers and Val Verde CO2 supply system, and the unit has been in CO2-era production since the late 1990s. One secondary source dates enhanced recovery here to 1972, but that is more consistent with SACROC, where large-scale CO2 injection began in January 1972, than with Sharon Ridge.
Sharon Ridge owners need to know which reservoir they are paid from. A tract can hold shallow Clearfork royalty under a depth-named Railroad Commission field and deep Canyon Reef royalty under a unit tied to the CO2 pipeline system, and those two streams have completely different remaining lives and completely different valuations. Owners regularly assume one check represents everything they own. Sorting that out before pricing is the work. We buy minerals and royalties in Scurry and Mitchell counties and provide free written offers.
County-level well data, production charts, and selling guides for the counties this field spans:
They are the approximate depth of the producing zone in feet. The Railroad Commission has long used depth-based names when several distinct reservoirs share a field name, so Sharon Ridge (1700) and Sharon Ridge (2800, S) are separate reservoirs at those approximate depths, each with its own field rules and its own leases. Your check detail will name the specific field, which tells you which zone pays you.
In a Canyon Reef unit, generally yes. CO2 injection recovers oil that waterflooding leaves behind, so unit production holds up years longer than it would otherwise. The benefit reaches you through your unit tract factor rather than well by well, and it applies only to the reservoir the flood covers — shallow Clearfork royalty on the same tract is unaffected by a deep CO2 project.
That is a legitimate strategy and we structure deals that way regularly. Selling one depth interval or one unit while retaining another lets you take value off the table where you want certainty and keep exposure where you want it. It requires careful drafting so the conveyance describes exactly what is sold, but there is no rule that says an interest must be sold whole.