Like Rodney Dangerfield, the Mississippian Lime can't get no respect. The most recent "dissing" comes from peak oil aficionados who cite the steep decline in Chesapeake Energy Corp.'s Serenity 1-3H Mississippian Lime well in Woods County, Okla., as the poster child of unconventional nonsustainability.

Chesapeake announced well results of 1,250 barrels of oil per day (bbl/d) and 1.3 million cubic feet per day of gas in January 2009 for the Serenity, the discovery that opened the Lime west of the Nemaha Ridge to horizontal exploitation. (Ceja Corp. had drilled several horizontal upper Lime tests a half-decade earlier east of the Nemaha.) Five years later, Serenity’s production had fallen to 100 bbl/d -- not unusual in a tight formation play, though an apparent cause célèbre for skeptics.

In fact, initial skepticism regarding the Lime originated when offsets in surrounding townships failed to match Serenity’s results--sort of the Lime story ever since. Unlike a shale play, the Mississippian Lime, as a carbonate, is highly varied in porosity across very short distances laterally and vertically.

“The reservoir types in the Mississippian cover a spectrum,” geoscientist Shane Matson told Oil and Gas Investor. “Some of them are conventional reservoirs, trapped conventionally, and some are unconventional tight oil reservoirs that require a whole new concept of horizontal fracture stimulation.”

Getting a handle on the Mississippian has been tough. For one, Oklahoma Corporation Commission records are--how shall we say--imprecise in terms of production, water volumes and timeliness, and it has been a challenge obtaining data for Oklahoma’s Scoop, Stack and Lime plays. Scarce information helps larger independents quietly assemble acreage in new plays but slows the developmental timetable as operators work in isolation.

Also, consider that the Lime has fewer than 800 wells under its belt vs. 16,000 in the Barnett, or more than 7,000 in the Bakken. In fact, the Mississippian is still in the optimization mode of the tight formation cycle, and one could argue that the Lime is farther along than those two shale plays at comparable well counts.

Observers divide the play into a gassier section west of the Nemaha Ridge dominated by public independents and an oilier play to the east dominated by smaller, privately held companies. Matson says oil recovery is similar between the sections, though gas-oil ratios can reach 20 or 30 to 1 west of the Nemaha vs. 1 to 1, or less, to the east.

In the past six months, companies like SandRidge Energy Inc. have released technical data suggesting they’ve cracked the technical code, while Midstates Petroleum Co. Inc. announced success with openhole completions and well re-entry using acid fracture stimulation.

Most recently, Petro River Oil Corp. acquired Spyglass Energy Group LLC and 106,000 contiguous acres in Osage County, Okla., through an intermediary, Bandolier Energy LLC, in June 2014. The deal marries an opportunity for additional capital--Petro River is seeking a joint venture partner for developmental funds--with the experienced scientific and management team at Spyglass, which included Matson and pioneering Mississippian Lime geoscientist Charles Wickstrom. The acquisition should open up the Lime east of the Nemaha Ridge.

Operators have learned that the Mississippian is, in fact, a stacked play with up to three distinct sections several hundred feet thick. The early play was all about targeting a highly-porous chert in the top 50 feet or 75 feet of the Upper Lime. Completion techniques that work in the porous zones do not work in underlying formations where porosities are as low as 2%.

Each well exhibits its own characteristics and operators are adapting completion techniques in real time to fit individual wellbores. Openhole completions work in porous areas; massive entry fracs can connect natural fractures in the play in less porous areas. Technical factors such as stage length, the volume of perforation clusters within a stage, and the amount of fluid pumped downhole are significant variables in dealing with differing porosities. Although water is considered an issue, today’s electric submersible pumps are efficient and low cost when it comes to artificial lift.

The play is suited to well-capitalized operators technically proficient at working high-fluid volume reservoirs. Think of an EOR model rather than coaxing gas out of tight sands.

While there shall be no Lime before its time, Oklahoma’s Mississippian Lime might, in fact, just be ready for prime time.