Forest Oil Hits It Big In Haynesville Shale

It is not often that you hit a home run in your first at-bat, but it looks like Forest Oil, with corporate headquarters in Denver, Colorado, has done just that. Their first horizontal well in the Haynesville Shale Gas Play produced at a rate of 14 MMcfe/d, which is eye-opening by any standards.

Note that Forest Oil says they completed a 14 well vertical drilling program in 2008 in the Haynesville Shale. Why 14 vertical wells before drilling a single horizontal well? Prudence and foresight. The vertical wells give them geologic information which they can use to correlate, interpret and maximize the drilling, completion, and production of their subsequent horizontal wells. Obviously they're doing it right. Beginners luck you say? I don't think so.
Peter


Forest Oil All Smiles over Completed Haynesville/Bossier Shale Well
Forest Oil Corp. 2/11/2009
URL: http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=72803

Forest Oil has reported results from its first horizontal Haynesville/Bossier shale well in the East Texas/North Louisiana corridor. The Moseley 14-1H, located in Red River Parish, Louisiana, produced into the sales line at a rate of 14 MMcfe/d with 6,500 psi flowing casing pressure while still cleaning up frac load. Forest has a 100% working interest in this well.

Forest holds approximately 3,800 net acres around the drillsite. Forest has approximately 140,000 gross (106,000 net) acres in the Haynesville/Bossier play and intends to operate a two rig program to drill 10-12 horizontal Haynesville/Bossier shale wells and participate in 2-3 non-operated wells during 2009. The Company currently has two horizontal Haynesville/Bossier shale wells completing and two drilling.

In 2008, Forest completed a 14 well vertical Haynesville/Bossier shale program in East Texas and North Louisiana. The 2008 vertical program allowed the Company to obtain additional data to identify the most prospective geographic areas to drill horizontally for the Haynesville/Bossier shale on its acreage. In 2009, Forest will now focus on executing a horizontal drilling program on its Haynesville/Bossier shale acreage using the Company’s wholly owned drilling subsidiary Lantern Drilling.

H. Craig Clark, President and CEO, stated, "We are particularly pleased with the productivity of our first Haynesville/Bossier horizontal. Our operations team has again performed well, especially in light of the mechanical difficulties being experienced in the industry related to this type of horizontal drilling. We will continue to evaluate different well designs and stimulation treatments as we did in our successful Cotton Valley horizontal program. Our future Haynesville program, like the Cotton Valley, will lead to increased cost efficiencies and enhanced completions."