re: Haynesville Shale North of Benton??

As you know the oil business has always been full of rumors, but the events of the last few months in NW LA have been mind numbing. I can't believe how many people are so jaded at the huge amounts of money being thrown around. Three years ago you were lucky to make more than $200-$300 per acre on any play around here. The same land which leased for $25 per acre in 1998 has gone for $25,000 today. It just gets wilder every day. We'll have to watch the Matador, Samson, and Goodrich wells to see how far North this thing ends up ultimately going. Nobody really has any idea what minimum thickness is going to work. Keep in mind that other properties besides thickness are also important like porosity, total organic content, permeability, and kerogen content. Many of these properties are going to influence productivity of the shale.

With Samson nobody really knows. They do a lot of things that make people in the business scratch their heads. I've seen Goodrich's website showing the Goldco well having 250' plus of shale, and then I've heard from someone owning a participating interest in the well that it had almost nothing. Then to top it off Petrohawk said that the well was no good. Things like this lead me to not believe anything until I see logs, tests, production numbers, etc. Until someone drills a horizontal it will be very hard to tell in that area since any cores, mudlogs, and rock properties will likely be held tight. Maybe Nadel and Gussman will try one.

If someone had told me a few years ago that they could make a 10 MMCFGD well, skid the rig over, do it again, and continue this again and again with no dry holes I wouldn't have believed it. Now companies are saying that wells will average 6.5 - 8.5 BCFG per well inside the core area, and will do it at least on every 80 acres. Incredible. That J-W Rumbaugh well is the interesting one. It obviously had some of the zone as they frac'd the well and the frac screened out. Lots of people are hesitant to get north of that well it seems like. But one thing is that the productive limits are probably not going to follow a straight line. It might move north in one spot, and then move south in a different spot. That is where the speculation step out drilling comes into play. The Comstock map is pretty good at showing something like this. One thing is for certain and that is that this is definitely a big boys game.

I am not familiar with the term screened out? What exactly does that mean?

You know I really respect your opinion and help, and I know plenty of companies have bought bad leases,but I just cant see a big Barnett player blowing 40-50 million in 21N bottom 22N without doing some pretty good research. I am sure they have access to most of the same logs, smackover perfs, data etc.

Screen out occurs when the frac job can't be pumped away and the formation can't take the sand proppant any longer. It can happen due to pump failure or because the zone is too thin to accept the treatment. A five foot Cotton Valley zone, for example, likely can't take a million pounds of sand in a frac treatment. I agree with you on doing research and paying for a big lease. Maybe they saw something nobody else has, including me. People miss things all the time. My original responses in this thread were meant to show evidence why I felt there is little chance of the Haynesville shale being present in North Bossier near Plain Dealing and the Stateline area. This discussion kind of evolved into other things over the course of a few weeks. I think I have stated that I'm all for the shale being present in North Bossier (it would help me out some also), but I just don't see it happening. The area around Gilliam is a lot further south, and although I can't see what would interest a company in that area maybe they have seen something they think they can make work. Again, we'll just have to wait and see. I know lots of people in the Dixie area got offers from Petrohawk a few months ago for something like $3,000 per acre only to see the offers get rescinded a short time later.

Without being on the J-W location and having access to their data I really couldn't tell you. Plays like this are trial and error to a certain extent. Maybe another company has a stimulation method they think will work in this kind of area.

That well was drilled in the 1940's and was plugged and abandoned. I just can't see how Petrohawk can afford all this. CHK has issued stock twice, sold three different asset packages, and sold part of their acreage to fund this play and Petrohawk has only issued stock twice I think even though they are a much smaller company than CHK.

so what are they up to with it?

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