Chesapeake Bracing for Haynesville's "Big One"

Okay, enough with the fart jokes. But in reality, Chesapeake is expecting a hurricane out of Haynesville's "rear:"

Chesapeake Energy Corp. expects to hike its Haynesville shale gas output to a gross operated 575 MMcfe/d at the end of 2009 and as much as 1.025 bcfe/d by the end of 2010. The production rate in late July was 175 MMcfe/d net and 285 MMcfe/d gross operated. The company plans to average 33 operated rigs in the second half of 2009 and 36 rigs in 2010 compared with 29 currently active. Chesapeake has added 40,000 net acres since Mar. 31, 2009, and is now the play’s largest leasehold owner at 510,000 net acres. Plains Exploration & Production Co., Houston, Chesapeake’s 20% joint venture partner, owns another 113,000 net acres.

[...]

Chesapeake recovered 35% of its $4.7 billion Haynesville leasehold investment with the sale of a 20% interest to Plains, bringing Chesapeake’s net investment in Haynesville leasehold to $6,000/net acre.

- Brewskie

America's Biggest Gas Play Producing Good Flatulence

A consequence of the cheap natural gas environment is reduced drilling. Welcome to the "boom-bust" cycle. However, America's "king of natural gas fields" is still attracting the locusts of the gas industry. See below and click here for the article...

Some natural gas companies have decided to scale back drilling to ride out the economic storm.

However, well results from the Haynesville Shale natural gas deposit have some of the major players in the shale, like Petrohawk Energy Corp. and Chesapeake Energy, investing more money in the play.

"We've scaled back our overall budget," said Joan Dunlap, vice president of investor relations for Petrohawk, "but not in the Haynesville."

Of Petrohawk's approximately $1 billion budget for 2009, between $700 million and $800 million is dedicated to the Haynesville Shale natural gas deposit.
There's a good reason for that investment.

According to the latest data from the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, the top producing well for the month of December belongs to Petrohawk. The well, in Red River Parish, produced about 713.4 million cubic feet of natural gas that month. That translates to about 23 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

It's not the only well producing extraordinary numbers.

There are 266 wells permitted to drill in the Haynesville Shale. Forty-four of them are active and producing, according to data from Natural Resources.

Of those 44, eight produced from 100 million to more than 700 million cubic feet of natural gas in December.

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A good well in those fields could produce 2 million to 3 million cubic feet of natural gas a day, Lasseigne said.

"Obviously, the shale wells are up to 10 times better than the typical wells drilled over the last five or six years," he said. "These are phenomenal wells. Even the major players are pleasantly surprised by the quality of these wells."

Even with the current low price of natural gas, which was trading for about $3.85 per mcf Monday, companies still are able to turn a profit.

Check this map for other shale gas plays. It's from 2005 and needs to be updated, especially the Haynesville blot.

- Brewskie