With Jerry Jones at His Side, Jay Allison Is Betting Big on the Western Haynesville

The Comstock Resources CEO is making a pivotal play that could shape America’s natural gas future.

By Jennifer Warren | November 10, 2025 | dmagazine.com

Two minutes to touchdown, Mr. Jones,” says a helicopter pilot nearing a drilling rig in Jewett during the opening scenes of America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys, a new Netflix docuseries about Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys. With him is Comstock Resources CEO Jay Allison. Viewers likely don’t know that the East Texas town is surrounded by what could be the last great natural gas play in the U.S. Jones sums up the risks. “Oil and gas is notoriously risky because it’s miles and miles deep,” he says in the scene. “Only God knows what’s down there.”

Comstock Resources began amassing acreage in the newly minted play five years ago through an extensive top-secret leasing program and series of acquisitions. Allison revealed its massive scope during an earnings call this past February.  In an interview at his office a few months later, he shared a series of chronologically dated maps with yellow highlights, little checkers, and the game-changing swath of 525,000 acres—a disclosure that redefined Comstock’s future.

Under Allison’s hand, the feat combined geological risk-taking with strategic capital from its largest shareholder: Jones. The land’s strategic location—near the Gulf Coast, which is ideal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) export, and proximity to Houston and Dallas, where AI-driven data centers are expanding—doesn’t hurt either. “It’s undedicated,” Allison notes, referencing the flexibility it offers.

Comstock is a true survivor in one of the most volatile industries in the world. It outlasted the carnage of the shale gas busts of 2008 to 2010, the OPEC price war of 2014 to 2016, and the pandemic that upended markets in 2020. 

Known for an almost photographic recall of people, dates, well EURs (estimated ultimate recoveries), big checks, and market cycles, Allison has guided Comstock through decades of volatility. A man of faith, he combines humility with quiet boldness—a rare mix in the energy business. “We’re the single largest owner of Haynesville Bossier acreage nearest the Gulf corridor,” he says. 

Beyond being the longest-tenured chief executive of a public oil and gas firm, Allison has the distinction of identifying and naming what could be the last great play in America—the Western Haynesville of East Texas. It’s this combination of resilience, vision, and staying power that has earned him the top honor in D CEO’s 2025 Energy Awards program, the Legacy Award.

Faith, Family, and Football

Allison was raised by a hard-working single mother in May, a tiny unincorporated community about 20 miles north of Brownwood in Central Texas. Football practices in triple-digit weather instilled the discipline he would later draw on as a marathoner, even taking on extreme races in the Himalayas of Nepal and Tibet.

He went on to play football at Baylor University, where he earned a master’s degree in economics and a law degree. After graduating in 1981, Allison joined a law firm in Midland, training that proved invaluable for leading a publicly listed energy company.  His legal background shaped his methodical approach—each step deliberate, no corners cut. 

In 1987, at age 30, he bet on himself and bought the namesake Comstock Tunnel and Drainage, a Nevada company that originated in the mid-1800s as a silver mining concern. He changed the name to Comstock Resources, with its focus on oil and gas. Acquisitions fueled its growth until 2007, when a strategic shift moved the company into shale operations in the Haynesville play of North Louisiana and East Texas.

Allison pushed Comstock to drill deeper—from 9,000 to 12,000 feet—in the Haynesville-Bossier play. Along with Chesapeake and one other firm, Comstock helped uncover what became known as the region’s “legacy” shale gas play. But the financial crisis from 2008 to 2010 sent gas prices plunging. 

By 2011, Comstock had grown into a force in the industry. Another reversal soon followed, however, as the shale boom moved to Appalachia in the Northeast. Concluding he couldn’t make money on gas, Allison shifted Comstock to oil, drilling in the Eagle Ford and Delaware Basin of the Permian—a move that quickly paid dividends.

“When Saudi Arabia decided to drop oil and gas prices to [nearly] zero over Thanksgiving of 2014, everybody in America got hurt,” Allison says. He counts the three-year OPEC-driven price collapse as the most difficult valley (of six) during his career. Comstock limped through the industry’s rough patch of 2015-16, drilling longer laterals to stay competitive. Unlike many peers, he refused to declare bankruptcy—“the easy way out,” he says—and instead chose to resurrect the Haynesville. 

In early January 2018, Allison got a call from Jones, who wanted to talk about a joint venture. Jones was no stranger to energy. Before buying the Cowboys in 1989, he built his first fortune drilling oil and gas wells through Jones Oil and Land Lease, ventures that gave him both capital and a taste for high-stakes risk. But the proposed strategy wasn’t workable for Comstock’s weak position. “We have good assets,” Allison said, “but you cannot survive year after year of low commodity prices.”

Instead, Allison floated a workaround: Jones could become a large shareholder. The billionaire’s response was telling: “I’ve never owned a share of stock in my life,” Jones said. “I grew up in Arkansas and knew the Sam Walton story of going public.” 

Instead, Jones tied his fortunes to Comstock by exchanging the Bakken oil assets of his private firm, Arkoma, for $620 million of Comstock stock, giving him 84 percent ownership in the company. 

Jones’ entry marked a significant turning point. While many peers focused on mergers or free cash flow allocation, Comstock doubled down on exploration. Allison still worried that the company was too small. Jones responded by writing a $475 million check—part of what became a $2.2 billion transaction that positioned Comstock to be the largest operator in the Haynesville.

‘The Toughest Drilling Environment on Earth’

The scale of the Western Haynesville is staggering. Bank of America analysts describe it as a blank canvas of more than 700,000 contiguous acres, largely untapped. They project it could hold 99 trillion cubic feet of natural gas across more than 3,000 potential drilling sites. 

By contrast, Comstock’s Haynesville acreage supports wells that produce 15 to 20 billion cubic feet each; in the Western Haynesville, some wells are twice that size. Even if only a quarter of the new play proves out, analysts estimate it could support 25 years of drilling—or 25 trillion cubic feet of upside, Allison says. “We never hyped the story,” he says. “You don’t live through hype.” He learned that lesson in 2010, when producers in the Haynesville were paying up to $30,000 an acre and more than 150 rigs were drilling at once. When prices collapsed, many were sunk by pipeline commitments they could no longer afford. At the time, natural gas was selling for $3 to $5 per million BTUs; with gathering and transportation costs eating up $1 to $1.50, there was little left for profitable margins.

By contrast, gas fell again to about $2 last year—this time, Comstock took advantage. “What do you do when gas is $1.98 and Jerry Jones backs you?” Allison says. “You pick up 265,000 net acres at $401 an acre—and add to it.”

In 2020 and 2021, Comstock saw promise in an asset from its $2.2 billion Covey Park Energy acquisition—a tract 100 miles west of its core Haynesville acreage. One well, known as Circle M, began producing in April 2022. “It’s one of the best wells we’ve ever drilled,” Allison says, “but it was deeper, hotter, and harder.” A veteran on his oilfield services team, who had worked around the world, called the Western Haynesville “the toughest drilling environment on earth.” At one point, Allison recalls, “we said, ‘Let’s get rid of the rig, and see what the well tells us to do.’” They let it brew for five or six months. All this happened as natural gas prices fell to their lowest level in 30 years, even including the COVID crash.

Allison downplays the complexity. “It’s pretty simple,” he says. “The Western Haynesville is a Jurassic-age play that’s just deeper and hotter, geologically speaking.” Allison already had that kind of experience in his legacy wells. When a colleague who inherited Western Haynesville land asked him to show how to drill it, Allison declined—and instead offered to buy him a Shipley doughnut.

During Comstock’s March earnings call, Allison tried to convey the significance of the effort. Bank of America analysts understood: the company was pursuing a counter-cyclical strategy, exploring when low prices were driving many competitors to consolidate under the weight of debt or corporate constraints. Jones sums up the situation: “Jay really comes to play when the hair gets short, excelling in times of challenge,” he says.

A Hard-Rock Moonshot

Before finalizing the 2018 deal, Allison pressed Jones with a series of questions to convey the commitment—and give him an out if he had buyer’s remorse. Would he attend meetings at S&P and Moody’s? Spend days marketing in New York and Boston? Do the things required of a public company that are different than owning the Cowboys? Jones didn’t hesitate. “Sure, I’d love to do that,” he said.

The same instincts that helped Jones build the Dallas Cowboys into a $13 billion behemoth—bold bets, a tolerance for risk, and a focus on execution—also apply in the oil and gas business. Allison has shown similar endurance, pacing Comstock through the booms and busts of the energy business and finessing the company through the shale era, too. Together, they are like America’s oil and gas dream team—and today the company produces 1.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day

Allison says the relationship works because of transparency. “Jerry trusts us,” he explains. “My job is to keep him a thousand percent informed so he’s involved in every decision. Without that, I’ve lost the gift [of his trust]. And if you lose that, you’ve lost your humility.” For his part, Jones says Allison has the highest integrity of anyone he has ever been associated with. “This quality is demanded and mirrored in his organization,” Jones says.

Jones praises Allison’s ability to follow through with what he calls a “specific purpose of reputation.” On Comstock, he adds, “The more I know, the more I go.” Allison, in turn, credits the company’s success in part to Jones’ instincts and his willingness to inject capital at pivotal moments, when many competitors were collapsing or relying on acquisitions to grow.

Big checks were needed to pursue a play with so many unknowns—a hard-rock moonshot. “When I saw we could accumulate the leases, I felt comfortable about the volumes of gas,” Jones says. The harder part was getting it out of the ground economically. “I never thought we were betting the house,” he adds, noting his confidence that Allison had the numbers and information to guide them through the layers of hot, deep rock.

Jones credits Comstock’s edge to “resourcefulness, timing, and hustle”—from gathering and transporting to finding the best markets. He also points to its discipline. “They have a refreshing conservative way to get the most out of a dollar,” Jones says. Different than in conventional oil and gas, he observes that in shale plays, much of the value comes not just from what’s underground but from how efficiently it’s managed above ground.

An Enduring Legacy

Jones believes the Western Haynesville will secure Allison’s place among the top leaders in the industry. He credits the achievement not only to delineating the play, but also to Allison’s broader strategies for maximizing resources and business value. Comstock, for its part, most recently reported 18.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves.

As a swing producer of natural gas, the Haynesville matters. “Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on eight LNG facilities, six of them on the Texas Gulf Coast,” Allison says, noting they require about 14 billion cubic feet of gas per day. Asked why the Western Haynesville may be the last great play, he says: “Most of these new plays are deeper, so anything shallower typically will not be a new play. It’s also the closest, largest, continuous, dry natural gas play near LNG facilities.” Comstock’s ability to lease 525,000 contiguous acres in just five years sets it apart, too.

Allison’s first Wall Street moment came back in 1987, when he took Comstock public as a 30-year-old owner at the tail end of the Texas oil bust. This past May, he announced the company’s dual listing on NYSE Texas, making it one of the first to join the new exchange.

Looking ahead, Allison points to Comstock’s 10-year partnership with NextEra Energy, a $145 billion power generation giant. “They already serve most of the hyperscalers,” he says, adding that Comstock’s Western Haynesville play is both AI- and LNG-ready, given its location between Dallas and Houston. Comstock has also been an early leader in producing 100 percent responsibly sourced natural gas.

With a new play, $1 billion in liquidity, and little debt, Comstock’s next chapter may be its most significant yet. After more than half a century in oil and gas investing, Jones has little doubt: “I think Jay will be recognized as one of the most substantive natural gas leaders there’s ever been.”