More operators probe Haynesville gas shale

June 6, 2008
More operators are wading into the Jurassic Haynesville shale gas play in Northwest Louisiana and East Texas since Chesapeake Energy called the potential extraordinary earlier this year.

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, June 6 -- More operators are wading into the Jurassic Haynesville shale gas play in Northwest Louisiana and East Texas since Oklahoma City independent Chesapeake Energy Corp. called the potential extraordinary earlier this year.

Penn Virginia Corp., Radnor, Pa., expects its first horizontal well to exclusively target the Haynesville (Lower Bossier) shale to deliver 10-15 MMcfd in July after more pipeline capacity is added. Producing to sales at 5 MMcfd, the Fogle 5-H well in Harrison County has already flowed at rates as high as 8 MMcfd with 5,000 psi flowing casing pressure.

Penn Virginia, with 100% interest in Fogle 5-H, has drilled and completed 17 vertical wells on its 53,000-acre East Texas leasehold and tested four different reservoirs below the Jurassic Cotton Valley including the Upper Bossier shale and Lower Bossier shale. It expects to drill at least five more horizontal Bossier shale wells this year.

Goodrich Petroleum Corp., Houston, is testing early wells, acquiring acreage, and forming up a drilling program in Bethany-Longstreet and Longwood fields in Northwest Louisiana.

Goodrich Petroleum plans to spud its first horizontal Haynesville well in about 90 days. At Bethany-Longstreet it tested just over 1 MMcfd of gas from Haynesville at the vertical James Cook-1 and is completing its Clarence Brown-1, which cut 230 ft of net Haynesville shale with gas shows throughout.

Meanwhile, Goodrich will hike its Haynesville exposure to 30,000 net acres with an acquisition. It plans to acquire from a private party 3,250 net acres in the Haynesville shale trend and 12.3 bcfe of proved reserves associated with the shallower Cotton Valley and Cretaceous Hosston formations in Longwood field, Caddo Parish. Consideration is $32 million in stock.

The acquisition includes interests in 25 wells producing 1.2 MMcfed net. Goodrich will drill two new vertical wells and reenter one to test Haynesville shale at Longwood by the end of 2008.

Chesapeake said Haynesville could have "a larger impact on the company than any other play in which it has participated to date" including the North Texas Barnett shale (OGJ, Apr. 28, 2008, p. 40).