Midway-Sunset, Kern River, Belridge, Cymric, Lost Hills, Elk Hills: the most productive oil county in California, and we buy in all of it.
Kern County produces most of California's oil, and it has done so across three different centuries. The names on the map, Midway-Sunset, Kern River, Belridge, Cymric, Lost Hills, Elk Hills, are among the largest and longest-lived oil fields in the United States, and the operators here, Chevron, California Resources, and a bench of specialists, run steamfloods the way Oklahoma operators run rigs.
Most mineral buyers will not touch any of it, which is exactly why we do. It is worth knowing the scale of what you are part of: 34,272 wells are currently producing in Kern County, more than in any other county in America, and 246 permits have been approved in the last 90 days.
Fall 2026 update: The permitting thaw is now measurable. California approved roughly 350 new-drill permits in the first half of 2026 against 17 in all of 2025, nearly all of it Kern, after the late 2025 legislation reopened the county pathway and Kern County resumed issuing its own permits early in the year. Consolidation continued too: Berry is now part of California Resources, so Kern's two biggest fee payors are Chevron and CRC. Spuds still lag permits here, which is normal for steamflood country, but a Kern royalty is no longer priced against a permitting freeze, and offers that still assume one are stale.
The reason Kern royalties get underpaid is arithmetic rather than geology. Steamflood heavy oil produces modest volumes for decades, so a Kern royalty is small monthly money attached to an unusually long tail. The standard offer, a multiple of your last twelve months, prices the size of your check and captures very little of its length. We price the tail explicitly. See our San Joaquin Basin page for the full explanation. If you hold a producing royalty around Taft or Bakersfield, inherited fractions scattered across the west side, or non-producing acreage nobody has called about in decades, we will research it free, value it off the actual wells, and show you our math, including exactly how we discount for California's politics. If keeping it is the right answer, we will say that too.
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Running for CALIFORNIA RESOURCES CORPORATION, VALLEY RESOURCES INC, CHEVRON
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Most active: CHEVRON, CALIFORNIA RESOURCES CORPORATION, PREMIER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
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New wells turned to sales in the county.
County totals. Source: Enverus, as of 2026-10-02. Rigs are currently active; permits are those approved in the last 90 days; completions are wells reporting first production in the last 90 days, which lags by state. A zero does not mean nothing is happening, only that nothing was reported in that window. Activity like this is exactly what moves mineral value. If it is happening near you, find out what your interest is worth before you take anyone's offer.
California's largest oil field, producing since 1894 around Taft and Fellows. Steamflooded heavy oil with the patient decline that makes royalties here durable.
Discovered 1899 on the bluffs northeast of Bakersfield and famously still going. Shallow, dense well spacing, and some of the most predictable royalty checks in American oil.
The South Belridge and Cymric complex west of the valley floor, diatomite and heavy oil worked continuously for a century.
Diatomite ridge in northwestern Kern with dense development and long-lived production.
The former Naval Petroleum Reserve, one of the most prolific fields in state history, gas and oil both.
Wherever your interest sits in Kern County, we will research it free and value it with the work shown.
We buy in every California county, including ones without a page here. See the full county index or the California overview.
Everything a California owner needs in one place: who owns what under state law, how royalties must be paid and by when, what a buyer can and cannot deduct, the tax treatment of a sale, and the deadlines that quietly cost people their minerals. Free, and no sign-up.
Read the California guideThe things owners here most often wish they had read first. All free, none of it gated.
Free, no obligation, and no pressure. We reply within one business day, usually faster.
Prefer the phone? Call or text 918-984-1645 and you will get Stephen, the owner, not a call center. If we miss you, we text back the same day.
In a hurry? Our preliminary offer puts a written number in front of you within about two business days and holds it still for 7 while you decide.