Friday, February 13, 2009

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."

Haynesville Shale May Become World's Largest Gas Field?

Ok, CEO's have been known to exaggerate their company's prognosis. See the following comments by the CEO of Chesapeake Energy. However, the Haynesville Shale in northwestern Louisiana and far eastern Texas is shaping up to be at least a major new gas play. Call it "unconventional shale gas", but it is for real. This gas play is at the heart of what I'm presenting on this blog.

The Haynesville Shale Play involves horizontal drilling, and the interpretation and steering while drilling of those wells, multi-stage frac jobs, and the opening of thousands of feet of pay zone, and multiple wells being drilled in all directions from one location. The Haynesville Shale and plays like it represent a big part of the future gas industry. Stay tuned.
Peter


Haynesville Shale Primed to Become World's Largest Gas Field by 2020 by Starr SpencerPlatts 2/11/2009
URL: http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=72839

The Haynesville Shale may eventually become the world's largest producing gas field, Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy and a pioneer of the play in east Texas and northwest Louisiana, said Wednesday.
(Map showing the location of the Haynesville Gas Shale Play)

Chesapeake expects the play, which only became widely known when the company began talking about it last March, will produce at least 500 Tcf over time and then recover around 700 Tcf before potentially growing even larger, McClendon said during a presentation to the annual Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference in Houston.
"We think in time it will become the largest gas field in the world at 1.5 quadrillion cubic feet," he added.

Haynesville will become the largest US gas field by 2020, he added.
Meanwhile, the Barnett Shale play in north Texas, which sparked the shale craze earlier this decade, now produces 4.5 to 5 Bcf/d, and "is largely responsible for the current oversupply of natural gas" in the US, said the CEO. However, Chesapeake does not believe production will peak at more than 7 Bcf/d.

"If the current 100 rigs there -- half what it was six months ago -- holds, this field won't ever produce more than about 6 Bcf/d," he said.
Last week, Chesapeake peer EOG Resources said it expected the Haynesville to peak in the first quarter at 5 Bcf/d.

In addition, McClendon projected that a declining rig count could cause a 7% to 8%, and possibly even as much as 10%, decline in US natural gas production.

"You could see as much as a 10 Bcf/d swing in gas output year over year," McClendon said. US gas production currently hovers about 60 Bcf/d.

However, oilfield service costs should be down this year about 20%, and that, on top of the fall in rig count, should also spur recovery in the rig count, he said.

"The seeds of recovery in gas prices are being sown today and we think 2010 and 2011 should be a much better environment," said the CEO.

He also said he believes the US gas rig count, which peaked at about 1,500 rigs last September, needs to go down about 60% to create the much-sought price rebound. It is currently at 1,104 rigs.