By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Nov. 25 -- Southwestern Energy Co., Houston, said it reached TD and logged apparent gas pay at an exploration well on the Ranger anticline west of Waveland gas field in the southeastern Arkoma basin.
The company gave no depth but earlier this year said the well, 6 miles west of Waveland field, would target the same Pennsylvanian Borum sand reservoirs that produce in the field.
This and another fourth quarter exploration well are evaluating Southwestern's 35,000 gross undeveloped acres in the area.
Southwestern earlier won state approval for 80-acre spacing in Waveland field, Yell County. Former spacing was 640 acres/well, and drilling a second well resulted in delay until a state hearing could be held.
The company has drilled 26 wells, 21 of them successful, at an average finding and development cost of 75¢/Mcf since it began drilling in the area in 1997. Waveland averaged 9.3 MMcfd at Sept. 30, 2003, up from 4.3 MMcfd in December 2002.
The general project area, east-southeast of Booneville in Logan and Yell counties, is in a thrust belt south of the mature basin's channelized fairways. This area is more structurally complex with thrust faulting and repeated sections, but the sands tend to be more continuous.
