HOUSTON FIRMS PLAN ENTRANCE INTO BAKKEN (AND HAYNESVILLE?)

By Luke Geiver | December 16, 2015  http://thebakken.com

Houston-based UpCurve will focus on acquiring wells or acreage in t...

A team of former Houston oil executives have started an upstream-focused oil and gas company that will focus on acquiring wells or acreage in the Bakken, Marcellus, Eagle Ford or Haynesville shale. UpCurve Energy will use $100 million in funding from Post Oak Energy Capital to enter the plays where it will optimize production, recompletion, new developments or infill drilling efforts.

Denis Pone, UpCurve CEO, holds four patents in enhanced oil recovery and production optimization. According to the company, he is also credited with pioneering ConocoPhillips’ horizontal refracturing program. UpCurve’s targeted basins, “not only harbor thousands of refract opportunities due to the presence of older, less advanced completions,” the company said, “but also possess equally attractive undeveloped opportunities.”

“Fully capturing the tremendous resources revealed by the shale renaissance will require a proper integration of technical expertise, financial strength and entrepreneurial spirit,” Pone said.

UpCurve isn’t the only Houston-firm making recent news for its efforts to enter and work in the Williston Basin. Lime Rock Resources has made its plans to acquire Occidental Petroleum’s Williston Basin assets official. Lime Rock will acquire Oxy’s Russian Creek assets and producing wells which lie north of Dickinson, North Dakota for roughly $600 million. The purchase is Lime Rock Resources largest to date. “The Lime Rock Resources team has begun leveraging operational synergies with its other Williston Basin properties and applying its operational expertise to the large-scale asset,” the company said. 

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