Eyes Are On Southern Part Of Haynesville Shale Play In Texas
The fact that Devon is drilling for the Haynesville Shale due east of the town of San Augustine County, Texas will most likely cause other operators that have leasehold in the area to ramp up drilling operations very soon. Chesapeake will probably be next following Devon in Sabine County, Texas. Chesapeake has several thousand acres leased in the northern part of the county.
Posted by Jurassic Exploration Inc on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 15:47
I think it's possible that Devon may show up in Sabine before the 4th quarter. That would put most of their leases around a year old give or take a few months. Seems plausible that they will make some sort of move to at least HBP some of that acreage by late this year or early 2010.
The risk is higher and they can't hold as much land with a vertical. But how fast can they go once they get a plan (with all the attendent pieces) in place? There is some infrastructure here... is it not adequate as to volume and pressure?
Just speaking to one lease of probably 300 that Devon alone made since 2008 in Sabine County, there are 4 owners of the family farm in Sabine and to renew the lease in 2011 for 400+ acres would cost them 2.550 million. Seems that bringing in the infrastructure would be a lot cheaper than paying renewals on 300 or so leases. Also, it would seem odd that the 100+ wells they plan to drill in the southern part of the shale would all be able to be near pipelines??? Just my opinion.
Agreed that they need a few of those 30+ mmcf wells to make the operators feel a bit more positive about the risk/reward proposition of drilling and then building infrastructure. That seems to be the case in San Augustine and would probably work the same in Sabine County. I am keeping my fingers crossed for both counties to be strong for many years.