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Permalink Reply by Checkmateking on October 7, 2010 at 5:03

There have been deep Tuscaloosa horizontals in the deep portions of the play, they are extremely expensive to drill and completely uneconomical at this time. Here is an example. #236089

Here is a better example in St. Helena #237776

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Permalink Reply by Kirk Barrell on October 8, 2010 at 1:59

The rock is believed to be too ductile. The production rates of the Encore Weyerhaeuser well seemed to support this assumption. I've heard that the last Encore well was drilled for $7M, but recent estimates are in the $10-12M range.

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Permalink Reply by Mark P on October 8, 2010 at 3:34

There have been some TMS wells drilled in the Louisiana parishes south of the Wilkinson / Amite Co (Ms) area as vertical wells. TMS creates some different problems due to its instability and sloughing nature. Plus there apparent localized overpressuring in the TMS (probably tied to oil and gas generation creating higher pressures that cannot be bled off due to titeness of the rock in question. The recent lateral wells drilled in the area to test this concept have encountered a very large rash of mechanical / drilling problems with their wells - more than likely there is a lot more going on here than in stratigraphic equivalent (i.e. Eagle Ford) parts of the section along trend.

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Permalink Reply by Jim York on October 11, 2010 at 1:42

I believe Encore wound up taking a $fifty million write-off on their four well, 200,000 acre venture chasing the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) in MISS & LA. It is ashame because according to the literature the TMS contains 7 billion+ Barrels of Oil.

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Permalink Reply by Kirk Barrell on October 11, 2010 at 2:49

Remember, "containing oil" and being able to produce "economic quantities of oil" are two entirely different things.

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on October 11, 2010 at 3:00

Were the mechanical problems associated with the horizontal TMS wells drilling or completion related? I was under the impression that the frac design was the primary problem and that one or more wells exhibited good initial flow rates but then experienced near well bore permeability issues.

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Permalink Reply by Jim York on October 11, 2010 at 6:07

Confession time - I sold Encore the initial prospect (Joe Jackson H well). On the first well Encore's head engineer was not listening to anyone who had drilled Tuscaloosa wells before. For example, anyone who has drilled into the TMS knows that you need a protective casing string in order to weight up without exceeding the up-hole frac gradient. They drilled straight on thru and almost had to junk the hole. Encore did prove that a horizontal can be drilled the silty layer containing oil and pipe can be set.

Kirk is right - the zone is non-commercial primarily, I believe, due to proppent embedding by the silt. Crack that problem and you will be on easy street.

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