Wall Street investors have fallen in love with properties in the Permian Basin, and that is making some West Texas oil men nervous. Even though a barrel of oil commands half what it did two years ago, the price being paid by companies for drillable acres in the prolific oil field has shot up to never-before-seen levels. In recent weeks, some have paid upward of $40,000 an acre for drilling leases—about eight times what similar properties fetched two years ago, when oil prices were close to $100 a barrel. Companies such as Pioneer Natural Resources Co. and Occidental Petroleum Corp. have said their land in the Permian Basin, where there are layers of oil-bearing rock stacked on top of each other, holds substantial oil reserves that can be tapped in tandem, making each […]