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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on March 25, 2014 at 12:35

The number of horizontal laterals that any operator judges as sufficient to drain a unit is based on their understanding of the petrophysical characteristics of the shale in that specific location.  The level of brittleness in the shale varies across the areal extent of the shale portion of the basin.  Clay content is generally higher in the north and decreases moving south however there are variations over relatively short distances. More clay equals less brittle shale, less clay equals more brittle shale.  The more brittle the shale, the fewer horizontal laterals may be required to stimulate the rock contained within the unit boundaries.

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Permalink Reply by dominator on March 26, 2014 at 6:29

so in your view chesapeake, or another company, could change and reduce the number of wells in a section? I think Exco says they are going to do so across ALL areas of the shale.

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on March 26, 2014 at 6:35

EXCO doesn't own development rights across ALL areas of the shale.  The bulk of their production is from the Holly Field and adjacent areas in addition to the small number of units recently acquired from CHK.  All E&P companies will adjust their development model over time based on experience.  EXCO has more experience with communication between closely spaced alternate well laterals because they moved to full unit development long ago.  Other HS operators have experimented with full unit development designs but on a much more limited basis.  All of them want to extract the most gas at the lowest production cost.

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