Comstock May Sell in East Texas Haynesville’s Angelina River Trend

Looking to sell some of its 302,000 net legacy Haynesville acres, Comstock Resources CEO Jay Allison responded to an analyst's speculation that the Angelina River Trend could be a divestiture candidate by saying, “good guess.”

Nissa Darbonne  Oil and Gas Investor  Thu, 07/31/2025 - 02:52 PM

Comstock Resources is looking to sell some of its 302,000-acre legacy Haynesville Shale leasehold, potentially in the Nacogdoches County area of the Angelina River Trend. (Source: Shutterstock.com)

Comstock Resources is looking to sell some of its 302,000 net legacy Haynesville Shale acres to reduce debt, while it grows its new, 524,000-net-acre, mega-Bcf, far western Haynesville wildcat play.

There, the E&P has signed a deal with NextEra to potentially develop a gas-fired power-generation complex for data centers in the western Haynesville, which is roughly equidistant from Houston and Dallas.

Comstock declined to say in an investor call July 31 where it has legacy Haynesville acres for sale.

But they may be in the Angelina River Trend play in East Texas, a securities analyst deduced.

“When I look at your acreage map, to me the most obvious sale for Comstock—you guys being really deep in inventory [and] the rest of the industry, at least in the Haynesville, really short on inventory—it would be in that Angelina River Trend,” said Charles Meade, an analyst with Johnson Rice.

“Is that a reasonable inference or is that not the direction you're going?”

Roland Burns, Comstock president and CFO, and Jay Allison, chairman and CEO, chuckled.

Burns said, “No, that's a reasonable inference.”

Allison said, “That's a good guess.”

Burns added, “That's reasonable. It’s an area that we just haven't been active in, but is active in the industry.”

The East Texas Angelina River Trend is generally in Angelina and Nacogdoches counties and extends into Shelby County.

“So yeah, hopefully we'll have a good view of that in our next report and really hoping that that really lets us accelerate our de-leveraging goals this year, while still being able to invest in the western Haynesville.”

$3 billion debt

Comstock’s long-term debt is $3 billion, while its market cap during the call was $5.4 billion.

The operator, which is 71% held by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, is getting more than 80% of its production from its legacy Haynesville leasehold in East Texas and northwestern Louisiana, where it has four rigs drilling.

Burns said the M&A market in the Haynesville had been focused, in the past several years, on proved developed producing (PDP) leasehold.

“Those are the type of buyers that dominated the acquisition space and it's changed a lot this year.”

Today, prospective buyers are interested in undrilled leasehold.

With 10 years of future drilling in its legacy Haynesville acreage—and having a large number of years to drill in the western Haynesville—Comstock looked at what it realistically drill in the original play.

 “If you look at the legacy [position] and you say you have 30, 40 years of inventory and the market tells you that there's a demand for some inventory—and they win and we win, if we sell and they buy—then we should take a hard look at it if it makes Comstock a much better company and it launches somebody else into the area,” Allison said.

Stiff chokes

Comstock’s 2022-minted wildcatting in the western Haynesville produced more than 20 wells that are now are gushing toward 3 Bcf per 1,000 lateral feet—and while on chokes varying from super-stiff to stiff—from the Haynesville and overlying Bossier.

Vertical depth is up to 19,000 ft; temperature can be more than 400 F.

The wildcats’ D&C costs averaged $2,647 per lateral foot in the second quarter. Comstock has more than 20 online to date. Lateral lengths are averaging more than 10,000 ft.

“When you get in the deeper parts of the core, you need to probably be a little bit more disciplined on how you draw the wells down,” Dan Harrison, COO, said.

“We choke our wells in a lot of different ways. We have wells all across the board, trying to see what works.”

Privately held Aethon Energy has made a handful of wildcats in the play where Comstock has landed horizontals. A 33-month-old well has already exceeded 3 Bcf per 1,000 lateral feet.

Harrison said, “We've gotten more aggressive at choking the wells back, trying to maintain a real disciplined drawdown.”

Allison added the company is operating the wells for today while “managing for [the] long-term.”