Sho-Vel-Tum is the largest oil field complex in Oklahoma — a sprawling merger of the Sholom Alechem, Velma, and Tussy fields along the Stephens–Carter county line that has produced well over a billion barrels of oil since first production in 1914. Few American fields stack as many pay zones: Permian, Pennsylvanian, Mississippian, and older rocks all produce here. For mineral owners, that stacked-pay geology has meant something rare — royalty income that has persisted, in one horizon or another, for more than a century.
First production in the Sho-Vel-Tum area came in July 1914 from shallow Permian rocks at a depth of only about 400 feet. Through the 1920s and 1930s, drilling walked down section into the Pennsylvanian Hoxbar and Deese sands — including the prolific Sims sands — proving up a complexly folded and faulted trend between the Arbuckle and Wichita mountains. What began as separate fields named Sholom Alechem, Velma, and Tussy gradually merged on the map into one continuous producing complex, and the contraction "Sho-Vel-Tum" stuck.
By mid-century Sho-Vel-Tum ranked among the largest oil accumulations in the United States, and operators turned to secondary recovery to sustain it. Waterfloods spread across the complex from the 1950s onward, unit by unit, and by 1984 primary and secondary recovery together had already delivered roughly 1.2 billion barrels. More than 99 percent of that oil came from five formation groups: the Pontotoc, Hoxbar, Deese, Dornick Hills–Springer, and the Sycamore limestone.
Sho-Vel-Tum also became a proving ground for enhanced recovery beyond water. Operators tested steamflooding in its shallower, heavier-oil sands, and in the 1990s a U.S. Department of Energy demonstration project in Stephens County evaluated alkaline-surfactant-polymer (ASP) flooding to mobilize oil that waterflooding leaves behind. The complex still hosts hundreds of active leases today, operated by a mix of independents working units their predecessors flooded decades ago.
Sho-Vel-Tum sits in the structurally intense northwest corner of the Ardmore Basin, where folding and faulting between the Arbuckle and Wichita uplifts broke the section into dozens of separate traps. Production spans Permian Pontotoc beds, the Pennsylvanian Hoxbar and Deese groups — with the Sims sands of the Deese among the best reservoirs — the Dornick Hills–Springer section, and the Mississippian Sycamore limestone. Pay depths range from a few hundred feet to several thousand, which is why one tract here can be productive in multiple horizons under different leases.
Waterflooding has been the workhorse at Sho-Vel-Tum since the 1950s, arresting decline across dozens of units and roughly doubling what primary recovery alone would have delivered. Operators later layered on targeted experiments: steamflood pilots in shallow, viscous-oil sands and a Department of Energy–supported alkaline-surfactant-polymer project in Stephens County in the 1990s. The result is a field complex where royalty checks have outlived the original lessors by generations — production sustained not by luck but by repeated reinvestment in recovery technology.
Sho-Vel-Tum minerals are classic legacy interests: small decimals spread across old units, often fragmented by three or four generations of inheritance, still paying on flood-supported production with a long remaining tail. Valuing them correctly requires reading the unit history, not just last month’s check — shallow stripper leases and active waterflood units sitting side by side can differ sharply in remaining value. We buy minerals and royalties in Stephens and Carter counties directly and provide free written offers, with title work handled at our expense.
County-level well data, production charts, and selling guides for the counties this field spans:
Yes. More than a century after first production in 1914, the complex still hosts hundreds of active leases across Stephens and Carter counties, most of them sustained by long-running waterflood units in the Pennsylvanian sands.
It is a contraction of three once-separate fields — Sholom Alechem, Velma, and Tussy — that grew together into one continuous producing complex along the Stephens–Carter county line.
It depends on which units and horizons your tract sits under — an active flood unit and a depleted shallow lease can carry very different value. Send us your legal description or a check stub and we will identify the units involved and give you a free written offer.