As a number of mineral companies focused on acquiring Haynesville Shale acreage have become newly active players, I find myself having to explain the relationship between Haynesville and Mid-Bossier reserves.  Since all Haynesville (HA) drilling and production units have depth interval ranges that include both the Mid-Bossier and the Haynesville, it can be hard to know when some horizontal laterals are landed in the Haynesville interval and others in the Bossier.  For Texas mineral buyers familiar with the East Texas portion of the fairway, this can be an elusive question to answer.  In Texas Haynesville units, well names distinguish which are Haynesville and which are Bossier.  Not so here.

Now that portions of the LA side of the fairway have units with wells targeting both intervals, those that have learned how to navigate basic SONRIS database searches can compare the True Vertical Depth (TVD) of wells in the same or adjacent units to see the difference.  Although it varies over the fairway, the depth difference is approximately 500 to 600' TVD. The shallower wells are Bossier, the deeper Haynesville.

Understanding this is important to the value of minerals.  Roughly the north half of the fairway has only Haynesville reserves, no Bossier.  The southern half has both.  The state requires all Haynesville well laterals, whether truly Haynesville or Bossier, to be spaced 660' apart, as a minimum set back, and no closer than 330' from a unit boundary.  Long lateral cross unit wells are not required to observe the 330' set back (no frac zone) on the north and south end of each section/unit. This results in approximately 80 acres of productive rock in each section that used to be off limits. This minimum spacing was followed through most of the Haynesville Shale development period producing eight wells, or lateral slots, per one mile wide section.  Then Chesapeake declared "Propageddon" in late 2016 ushering the practice of "high intensity" fracs.  See link at the bottom.

With high intensity fracs came larger frac cylinders and the ability to drain a common ~640 acre section with six wells instead of eight.  That is the common practice now although no operator that I am aware of pumps 5000# per foot of perforated lateral as Chesapeake did in their two Propageddon wells.

The bottom line for mineral owners is that if you are in the Haynesville only portion of the play fairway, your section will accommodate six wells.  If your minerals are located in the Haynesville and Bossier portion of the play fairway, your section will accommodate twelve wells.  Think of these as slots that the state approves and that represent the intended path of each horizontal lateral.  Much of the play fairway as it is currently defined by production has many sections with significant unrecovered reserves.  Most sections have at least one well.  The original unit wells likely drilled between 2008 and 2012.  However many wells you currently have, you can subtract that from six or from twelve, depending on your location, to determine the number of well slots undrilled.  A back of the envelope estimation of the recoverable reserves remaining.

Some buyers don't acknowledge this in their offers and hope to acquire minerals for the same offer price regardless of the location of the minerals.  Obviously, the more proven reserves that remain, the greater the value of the minerals.  A fact that a savvy seller should know.

https://www.worldoil.com/news/2016/10/21/chesapeake-declares-propag...