US Shale Plays to Watch in 2014
One ancillary play that operators are starting to examine is the Marble Falls play close to the Barnett shale play in North Texas. Located right above the Barnett shale, the slurry play is found at 5,000 feet with a thickness of 400 feet, and is a calcareous rock with lots of silica. Operators starting to develop this hidden play can use existing Barnett shale infrastructure. To date, companies such as EOG and Pioneer Natural Resources Corp. have successfully drilled over 300 wells in the play over the past year. Marble Falls drilling activity is taking place in Jack, Young, Palo Pinto, Stephens, and Parker counties.
A number of companies have drilled the Granite Wash play in the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, but are beginning to pursue other shale plays above the Granite Wash, including the Brown Dolomite, Marmaton, Cleveland and Tonkawa, which are charged, oil prone and shallower and cheaper to drill versus the Granite Wash. These plays go out much further west than the Granite Wash.
“We’re starting to see activity in counties where historically there has a lot of activity.”
While these wells have higher production rates, they also produce a fair amount of water, which means operators must find ways to dispose of this water.
One play that Gilmer sees as a re-emerging shale play is the Brown Dense in northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas, which got hot for a while, then cold after wells drilled didn’t produce as originally expected, but Southwestern Energy has drilled three wells there, Gilmer noted.
“It’s a nice thick zone that hasn’t played out as thought but hasn’t been tested as much.”
The upswing in oil prices has rejuvenated interest in older plays that operators had walked away from. Oil and gas companies are now returning to the Antrim shale play – the large majority of which is located in Michigan but also extends into Indiana and Ohio – the original shale play – which they abandoned the Antrim to pursue other plays. Some of the companies that have expressed an interest in the play include Breitburn Operating and Atlas Gas & Oil Co.
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