Get Paid Monthly By Sabine Royalty Trust
The idea of owning an oil and gas well might be compelling, but you’ll need a lot of money to get that off the ground. The cost to drill an oil and gas well can vary from a few hundred thousand dollars into the millions. It all depends on location, how deep you’re drilling, and the geography.
On average, oil wells cost between $6.6 million to $8.1 million, with drilling accounting for 73% of total costs. On top of this you have to facto in rig rentals, which can cost up to $10,000 per day and skilled labour, which can account for 30% to 50% of the total project cost. (Source: “How Much Does It Cost to Drill an Oil Well? A Comprehensive Overview of Expenses Involved,” Energy Field Invest, October 8, 2025.)
If you want to be an energy baron, or baroness, it might make more sense to turn your focus on a reliable, safe domestic crude oil and gas producer like Sabine Royalty Trust (NYSE:SBR).
About Sabine Royalty Trust
Dallas, Texas-based Sabine Royalty Trust is an oil and gas trust that has royalty and mineral interests in producing and undeveloped oil and gas properties located in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. (Source: “About Us,” Sabine Royalty Trust, last accessed May 26, 2026.)
That means that it has no real operations or capital expenses. It was formed in 1982 by Sabine Corporation and, as a trust, Sabine Royalty is primarily used as a flow through entity for royalties. Virtually all of the royalty income it receives gets passed onto unit holders. What that also means is it isn’t exploring for or investing in new wells.
When the Trust was formed in 1982 it had estimated reserves of approximately 9 million barrels of oil and 62 billion cubic feet of gas. At that time, the Trust was expected to have a life span of 9 to 10 years and be fully depleted by 1993.
That clearly didn’t happen.
Since then, the Trust has produced more than 25.0 million barrels of oil and 79.6 billion cubic feet of gas. This has resulted in the Trust paying out roughly $1.83 billion to Unit holders over the years
With current reserve estimates total liquids of 9.3 million barrels of oil and 60.7 billion cubic feet of gas remaining, it could be estimated that the Trust still has a life span of 8 to 10 years. (Source: “2025 Annual Report and Form-10K,” United States Securities And Exchange Commission, February 13, 2026.)
Announces May Cash Distribution of $0.50/Unit
Sabine Royalty’s monthly results are directly impacted by supply and demand and the price of oil and gas. As a result, the monthly results and distributions change from month to month.
For the month of May, Sabine Royalty declared a monthly cash distribution of $0.4979 per unit, or $4.74 per unit on an annual basis, for a distribution yield of 6.2%. (Source: “SABINE ROYALTY TRUST ANNOUNCES MONTHLY CASH DISTRIBUTION FOR MAY 2026,” Sabine Royalty Trust, August 5, 2026.)
The distribution reflects the oil production from February 2026 and gas production for January 2026. Suffice it to say, the current price of oil and gas is not reflected in its financial results. Oil and gas prices soared after the war in Iran began on February 28.
During the production period, the company generated 56,677 barrels of oil at $60.97 per barrel and 1.20 million cubic feet (Mcf) of gas at $3.98 per Mcf of gas. In the prior month, it announced oil production of 44,645 barrels of oil at $57.57 per barrel and 885,409 Mcf of gas at $3.42 per Mcf of gas, resulting in an April payout of $0.324970 per unit.
As expected, the distribution changes from year-to-year too.
| Year | Distribution |
| 2025 | $5.16 |
| 2024 | $5.45 |
| 2023 | $6.38 |
| 2022 | $8.61 |
| 2021 | $3.21 |
So far this year Sabine Royalty has distributed $1.71 per unit. For comparison’s sake, over the first five months of 2025, it paid out $2.13 per unit. (Source: “Cash Distributions,” Sabine Royalty Trust, last accessed May 26, 2026.)
Getting paid monthly is a great way to help ride out market volatility. And while there is a lot of uncertainty out there right now, SBR units are doing well. As of this May 26 writing, SBR units are up 14.6% year to date and 24% on an annual basis. That’s far better than what the S&P 500 has done this year.
Currently trading hands at $76.75 per unit, SBR units have a lot of upside. It hit a record high of $91.10 in January 2023.
Chart courtesy of StockCharts.com
The Lowdown on Sabine Royalty Trust
Sabine Royalty Trust is an oil and gas midstream company with a reliable monthly dividend. As long as oil and gas is coming out of the ground, unitholders will get paid. In fact, it hasn’t missed a payout since 2005. Most recently, in May it increased its monthly payout to $0.4979 per unit.
There is growing optimism for Sabine Royalty on Wall Street. When I looked at the trust back in May 2025 there were 129 institutional holders, today that number has increased to 166. Some of the biggest holders include Americana Partners, LLC, Mortan Stanely and Beacon Pointe Advisors, LLC. (Source: “Sabine Royalty Trust (SBR),” Yahoo! Finance, last accessed May 26, 2026.)