Haynesville Stats:

Subject:Details:
Areal Extent of Formation:9,000 sq. miles
Depths:10,500 to 13,500 ft.
Thickness:200 to 300 ft.
Original gas in place:717 Tcf
Technically recoverable gas:251 Tcf
Total organic content:0.5% to 4%
Porosity:8% to 9%

Notable Wells:

OperatorLocationWell #Flow
Encana Corp.Red River Parish, La.Walker #2H21 MMcf/d of gas
Encana Corp.DeSoto Parish, La.Jimmy Brown21 MMcf/d
EOG ResourcesNacogdoches County, TXHassel #2H21 MMcf/d
ComstockNatchitoches Parish, La.Sustainable Forest20 MMcf/d

The Haynesville Shale, in combination with the Lower Bossier Shale, has the potential to become a world-class gas play. It's old enough to gather a host of major operators and resource estimates, yet young enough to offer gains from drilling, completion, and operating improvements.

In its "Worldwide Gas Sales and Unconventional Gas: A Status Report" published in December 2009, Advanced Resources International reported that the Haynesville had no production in 2000, an estimated production rate of 900 MMcf/d of gas in 2009, and an estimated production rate of 1.9 Bcf/d of gas by the end of 2010. Chesapeake Energy discovered the play and announced the discovery in 2007.

The Lower Bossier Shale is coming on strong. Some sources say it is part of the Upper Haynesville, while others say it is a separate formation lying some 300 ft above the Haynesville. The Lower Bossier covers only part of the territory covered by the Jurassic Haynesville in northern Louisiana and eastern Texas.

The Haynesville extends into Arkansas, but gets more interbedded with sand in far-north Louisiana, Arkansas, and farther west in eastern Texas.

To date, Haynesville activity has taken place in Cass, Harrison, Marion, Nacogdoches, Panola, Rusk, Sabine, San Augustine, and Shelby counties in Texas, and Bienville, Bossier, Claiborne, DeSoto, Jackson, Lincoln, Natchitoches, Caddo, Red River, Webster, Winn, and Union parishes in Louisiana.

Mainland Resources has spudded the US $13.5 million, 22,000-ft Burkley-Phillips No. 1 Bossier-Haynesville well in Mississippi north of Natchez.

The Shelby Trough in San Augustine, Shelby, and Nacogdoches counties makes up the Texas sweet spot in the play.

According to a July 2010 Drillinginfo Energy Strategy Partners report by C.S. Smith, that area has produced 22 Bcfge with a number of wells passing the 1 Bcfge milestone. The shale is deep in this area, offering operators higher pressures and higher estimated ultimate recoveries (EURs). Some wells post EURs higher than 6 Bcfge.

Hot spots in Louisiana are in Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, DeSoto, Red River, and Webster parishes, but operators consider nearly all of northwestern Louisiana prospective.

Caspiana Field in Louisiana is the top producing field in the Haynesville play with 340 MMcf/d, Smith said, followed by Red River-Bull Bayou at 220 MMcf/d. Thorn Lake, Holly, Elm Grove, and RR-BB fields all report nine-month cumulative production levels of 2 Bcfge or higher.

All that gas required pipeline capacity, which is another active business in the play. Petrohawk sold a half interest in its pipeline system to Kinder Morgan for $921 million, and the companies are planning further expansion. Energy Transfer Partners has started work on a 42-in. diameter, 175-mile-long line from Panola County, Texas, through Caddo, DeSoto, Red River, Bienville, Jackson, Ouachia, Richland, and Franklin parishes in Louisiana to carry an initial 2 Bcf/d of gas, mostly Haynesville, with potential to expand capacity to 4.2 Bcf/d of gas.

Acquisition activity also is hot in the play. EXCO formed a partnership with UK-based BG Group to develop Haynesville/Bossier properties. They bought Common Resources’ position in the play, and agreed to buy Southwestern Energy's (SEECO’s) position for $355 million in June 2010. SEECO's 20,000 net acres hosted nine wells producing 51 MMcf/d of gas. The properties in Shelby, San Augustine, and Nacogdoches counties could contain 900 drilling locations.

The play also is generating new production efficiency techniques. Drillinginfo Energy Strategy Partners said EOG Resources, EXCO, Comstock, SM Energy, and Petrohawk are testing restricted production on wells to increase EURs with other companies expected to adopt the practice.

Petrohawk, which has 368,000 net acres, 4,225 net drilling locations, 1.53 Tcfge in proved 2009 reserves, a 15.5 Tcfge resource potential and 386 MMcf/d of production in the Haynesville, and another 4.1 Tcfge in resource potential in the Bossier, explained the benefits of restricted production.

It's trying to get higher permeability, more stable declines, higher decline curves, lower future capital requirements, higher EURs, and better reservoir management by stabilizing bottomhole flowing pressure by changing choke sizes on wells from 24/64-in. to 14/64-in. to 18/64-in.

The company compared two Red River Parish wells. A well with a 24/64-in. choke started production at 17 MMcf/d of gas and declined rapidly to approximately 8 MMcf/d of gas after a cumulative production of approximately 1 Bcf of gas and to approximately 5 MMcf/d of gas with a shallow decline curve as cumulative production reached 1.4 Bcf of gas. At the same time, surface pressure started at approximately 8,000 psi and declined to approximately 3,000 psi at the 1 Bcf of gas cumulative mark and to approximately 2,000 psi at 1.7 Bcfge.

A nearby well on a 14/64-in. choke started production at approximately 8 MMcf/d of gas with an almost flat decline curve. The well maintained a higher production rate at the 1 Bcfge cumulative mark than the 24/64-in. choked well. At 1.7 Bcfge cumulative production, it still produced at approximately 7.5 MMcf/d of gas. That well started with a surface pressure of 9,000 psi and drifted lower to 7,000 psi at 1 Bcf of gas cumulative production and to 5,000 psi at the 1.7 Bcf of gas production mark.

Chesapeake Energy is the largest leaseholder, biggest producer, and most active driller in the Haynesville play with roughly 530,000 net acres. Approximately 195,000 of those acres also could produce from the Lower Bossier. The company has approximately 2.9 Tcfge proved reserves and 23.7 Tcfge risked unproved resources.

Chesapeake has drilled and completed more than 252 gross operated Haynesville and Bossier wells and produced an average 615 MMcfge/d in July 2010. It worked 36 wells in the play in 2010 to drill approximately 175 net wells. It plans to reach most of its held-by-production goal by the end of the year and also could reduce its rig count at that time.

Three of the company’s mid-year Haynesville wells in DeSoto Parish tested for 22.2 MMcf/d, 22 MMcf/d, and 21.6 MMcf/d of gas, respectively.

Chesapeake said the Haynesville area is so large and productive that it likely will pass the Barnett in production by 2014 “to become the largest natural-gas producing field in the US.” Ultimate recoveries from the Haynesville could exceed 250 Tcfge, potentially making it one of the five largest natural gas fields in the world. It budgeted $1.785 billion for the play in 2010.

Chesapeake, among other companies, is working on pad drilling or factory-type production on its Haynesville/Lower Bossier properties.

Encana Corp.'s US division produced 325 MMcf/d of gas from the Haynesville in early 2010 from about 5.5 Tcfge in contingent resources.

Danny Dickerson, Encana team lead for East Texas, explained his company's gas-factory approach. The company will drill from multiwell pads skidding fit-for-purpose drilling rigs and conducting simultaneous operations for drilling and completing wells. It will use a single pipeline connection on each pad. The 4,000-ft laterals will be spaced 660 ft apart in the Haynesville with a north-south orientation. It will drill a pressure monitoring well in the center of each section. The factory approach also will reduce the surface footprint of its operations.

Encana has drilled longer laterals with more frac stages. Currently, the company uses 5-in. production cases, fracs in 10 to 14 stages with 300,000 to 350,000 lb/stage of proppant with 12,000 bbl of slickwater and linear stage gel per stage, and pumps 70 to 75 bbl/min of fluid.

It planned to test 51/2-in. casing, 12 to 16 frac stages, higher proppant concentrations, and more perforation clusters per stage in lateral lengths increased to 4,200 ft.

In the past, research has reduced well costs by 40% and reduced spud-to-release time for rigs by 16 days while increasing 30-day initial potential production to 16.9 MMcfge/d. Spud-to-release time was 55 days, and Encana wanted to reduce that to 35 days.