OKLAHOMA CITY ̶ Out around the western edge of the Fort Worth Basin, where the highly acclaimed Barnett Shale play peters out, lies the Marble Falls – “the best play you’ve never heard of” according to Craig Adams, president and CEO of Newark E&P Operating LLC.

Newark has an active drilling program underway targeting the little-known unconventional zone. The overlooked Marble Falls is a tight formation, he explained, that traditionally had been drilled through by other operators on their way down to the well-known and prolific Barnett. Or, it served “as the occasional bailout,” for wells that otherwise would have been dry holes, Adams said.

“But the play you haven’t heard about has double-digit returns even in this price environment,” he said in a presentation at Hart Energy’s 3rd annual DUG Midcontinent conference. “It is a prolific, tight-oil play… You can drill it anywhere and make hydrocarbons but there will be sweet spots.” The Barnett Shale is its source rock.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based company was organized in 2011 with financial backing from CCMP Capital Advisors and Quantum Energy Partners.

Newark holds 95,000 net acres prospective for the Marble Falls in Jack and Palo Pinto counties, Texas, most of it held by production. The firm has more than 100 Marble Falls wells on production and plans an active 2015 drilling program, starting in April. Meanwhile, Adams said, Newark is working off a number of completions on wells drilled in 2014.

Initial production rates are 50 to 100 barrels per day (b/d) with a comparatively shallow decline curve for an unconventional shale. The typical type curve is 230,000 barrels of oil equivalent. Associated gas at initial production can range from 400,000 to 1 million cubic feet per day.

The private firm has some 350 derisked drilling locations identified on 80-acre spacing. It drills the Marble Falls with vertical wells, employing nitrogen foam and slickwater frack techniques. “The economics of vertical wells are better right now than going horizontal,” he added.

The challenge Newark faces with a typical Marble Falls well is produced water – lots of it, Adams said. Water cuts ranged as high as 95% with early wells but now are in the 85-90% range, he added. Understandably, water disposal represents a major cost consideration. Newark trucked produced water from early wells, paying around $1.40 per barrel. It has developed a centralized field water-handling system that has reduced water disposal costs to the 10- to 15-cent per barrel range, creating significant lease operating expense savings.

Newark has found “letting the water flow is a good thing” that increases ultimate hydrocarbon recovery, Adams said.

Looking ahead, the CEO reviewed the play in his presentation while showing a dramatic photo of a rig’s mast poking above a fog bank in twilight as the rig drilled ahead on a Marble Falls well.

“We’re in the early stages with the Marble Falls. This fog was at sunrise, there’s not a setting sun on this play,” Adams said. “There’s running room but not at the scale of the Barnett.” The play extends to the northeast into Wise County, Texas, and Newark and other producers are likely to drill step outs across the zone’s areal extent.