Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bill Shaefer on July 1, 2009 at 3:15

I've been trying to get someone to tell me about Haynesville units but no one I've talked to seems to have all my answers so I'll ask here and see if anyone can answer my questions, which are

1.) If a well is 12,000' deep and has a 4,000' lateral, how much surface acreage is required to accomodate a well like that? I saw that Newfield is tell Oklahoma royalty owners that a 1,280 acre unit can accomodate a 10,000'' lateral. Are surface acreage and laterals absolutley proportionate: (i.e. will 640 acres accomdate a 5,000' lateral?)

2.) If a company says that they have 100,000 acres of Haynesville shale under lease, what would be the rule of thumb for the number of horizontal wells they could drill? Would it be 100,000 divided by 640 or something else?

3.) I've had tons of experience with So. La. wells. Whenever one was drilled, it was put in a temporary unit and after it was completed and produced for a while, it was put in a permanent unit based on reservoir drainage. Is that the way Haynesville works or are the wells drilled in permanent units. I remember we used to have all kinds of trouble with companies that had offsetting minerals trying to get their acreage included in our permanent units. I think we called those guys "cornershooters"

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on July 1, 2009 at 3:33

Gosh, Bill. This may have to be a team response to cover all your questions. Here are my thoughts.

1) HA wells are based on 80 acre spacing (there is little data to support the drainage area, that's just LOC's best guess). The penetration point may be within the section produced or in an adjacent section with a wellbore easement . From a production standpoint, the perforations in the lateral must be within the unit and no closer than 330' from the unit's section line. In a HA unit of one section (the norm), the max lateral length would be 5,280' minus 660' or ~ 4,620'.

2) 100,000 divided by 80 = ~1,250 potential wells.

3) There is little correlation between north and south LA. To the best of my knowledge, the HA D&P units are permanent.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by The_Baron on July 1, 2009 at 3:43

1) Surface acerage is not really the issue. The lateral will have to conform to the minimum setback of the perferations from the unit line. The real issues here are that the perferations in the lateral must be within the unit boundry. As most units thus far are based on section lines, thus approximatly one square mile, a 5000 ft lateral easily fits inside a section. I'm not sure that they could drill a 10,000 ft lateral at such pressures and depths as the HA (you would have over 20,000 ft of drill string) but I will defer to the people with more knowlegde on drilling rig tech.

2) The total of acres leased does not matter. The key is unit size. Most units are based on section lines, some like the new HK unit and those along the stateline are not. Each unit will eventually have multiple wells, some sources say up to 8 wells with parrallel laterals. This will de determined by two things: approved spacing (in this case we are looking at 80 acre spacing) and just pure economics (how many wells will it take to extract the recoverable gas?). Maybe it will only take 5 wells per unit, maybe 10, at this point who knows, we just need more data. Since most companies are concentrating on holding acreage, i.e. drilling one well per unit, we may not know for some time.

3) Your experiance in South La is not going to help much up here. In S. LA most units are "geological" and are redifined many times as new drilling provides better data as to the shape and size of a resevoir. In North LA, we use "geographical units", our units are usually just a square on map that has o bearing on the actual shape and size of the resevoir. This is espesially true in the case of the HA. The HA is fairly uniform and the gas is trapped in the rock, so migration is not really an issue. The units are regular in size and tend to be along section lines. The HK unit for the hamel well was different as it is the first unit that is in a real urban area in shreveport. The HA units will most likely never change as time goes by, unlike you S. LA units.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bill Shaefer on July 1, 2009 at 4:58

Baron and Skip, thanks for the education. Now I understand except for one thing. What is the minimum setback for perforations from the Unit line?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by The_Baron on July 1, 2009 at 5:22

KB is correct.

If you look at the permit for each well it will have all the applicable unit orders. Also the plat will usually show what intervals are to be perferated in the case of a horizontal well, as well as the surface location and lateral.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by The_Baron on July 2, 2009 at 9:39

bump.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by mary on July 3, 2009 at 14:00

In Barnett Shale, the units actually decreased in size because it was determined that they could not properly drain such a large area without multiple wells. The Texans didn't put up with the RR Commission granting favors to O&G over land owners. This is indicative of the cozy relationship that exists between The La Dept of Conservation and the O&G industry. No matter what they tell you, there is no way that you can ensure that multiple wells will be drilled in a unit. Contact NARO National Association of Royalty Owners in Tx or Ok. They will give you the facts.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next ›
• Page