Where we buy
Piceance Basin
The Piceance is a natural-gas basin with one of the longest-lived production profiles in the country. Its royalties look different from shale-oil checks — smaller, steadier, and tied tightly to gas prices — and they deserve to be valued that way.
The rock, in plain English
How the Piceance really works.
The producing engine is the Williams Fork: thousands of feet of stacked, tight gas sands developed densely with directional wells from the mid-2000s gas boom. Beneath and around it sits the thick Mancos shale — a vast gas resource that today remains mostly a someday story.
Piceance wells decline gently compared to shale oil. A royalty here can pay for decades, which makes the discount rate and the gas-price assumption — not the geology — the most important lines in any valuation.
Drilling activity since the boom has been modest and price-driven. Most owner value today is producing wells, not new drilling, so an honest offer here is mostly about reading your existing wells correctly — and being straight about what Mancos upside is and isn’t worth.
What moves the money
What a fair offer in the Piceance accounts for.
These are the lines we’ll walk you through before any number goes on paper.
Gas price leverage
Your checks rise and fall with natural gas more than anything else. We price off the futures curve, not last winter’s spike or last summer’s slump.
Long-life tails
Shallow declines mean the out-years matter here more than in oil basins — which makes the discount rate conversation worth having out loud.
Post-production deductions
Gathering, processing, and transport deductions hit Piceance stubs hard. What your lease says about deductions meaningfully changes net value.
Mancos optionality
Enormous on paper, mostly undeveloped in practice. We’ll tell you plainly how much (or little) we can pay for it today.
On the map
Counties we see most.
Where the Piceance files usually come from — though we read every county in the basin.
- Garfield
- Rio Blanco
- Mesa
- Moffat
By state
Selling rules differ by state line.
Pooling, title quirks, and taxes follow the state — our state guides cover them.
Want a number to anchor on first? The value estimator has the Piceance’s rule-of-thumb ranges built in, and the hold vs. sell comparator uses its decline assumptions. No email required for either.
No pressure, ever
Whenever you’re ready — even if that’s never.
Tell us a county and a name — we’ll do the the Piceance homework at our cost and walk you through what you own, whether or not you ever sell.
No automated calls. No mailers with sight drafts. No follow-up unless you ask for it.
Rather talk to a person? (970) 444-7374or email hello@eldoradomp.com