P2 Energy Solutions' Tobin Trend Maps
Provide Critical Information in Shale Play Decisions
The Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth Basin, Bakken Shale in North Dakota and Marcellus Shale in New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia have one thing in common - huge natural gas reserves. Add to this mix the Haynesville and Bossier Shale in East Texas and North Louisiana and you have not only another shale play but the potential for what could be the largest natural gas resource in the country.
This situation has every oil and gas exploration company scrambling to lease land in North Louisiana and East Texas where the upper Jurassic Haynesville Shale is known to be deposited and in East Texas where the Bossier Shale occurs. Chesapeake Energy, Plains Exploration and Production Company, GMX Resources and now Cabot Oil are just a few companies that are increasing exploration activities in the region.
For more information contact Al at atovar@p2es.com
Alfred (Al) Tovar is a senior regional account manager for P2 Energy Solutions and holds a Degree in Geology from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Al is a member of The Houston Geological Society and The American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
Geologic Overview
- The Haynesville and Bossier Shale deposits lie just beneath the Cotton Valley Sands starting around 10,000 feet below surface.
- The Smackover formation lies below the Haynesville and Bossier Shale formation at around 12,000 feet below surface and in other areas much deeper.
- Logs show a large gas-in-place volume of 200-350 net feet of Haynesville Shale along certain trends from North Louisiana to East Texas.
Drilling in the Haynesville and Bossier Shale
In the not-too-distant past, the ability to drill and extract natural gas from Shale was cost prohibitive. Straight well bores were not producing the necessary output to justify the drilling costs. In today's environment, high commodity prices for natural gas and new methods in horizontal drilling learned and developed from operators in the Barnett Shale has changed the situation.
Plains Exploration and Production Company and Goodrich Petroleum Corporation recently issued press releases on their web sites announcing that they have entered into Joint Ventures with Chesapeake Energy, the leading Haynesville / Bossier shale play operator. Plains Exploration reported that along with Chesapeake, it plans to develop approximately 550,000 net Haynesville leasehold acreage that could support the drilling of up to 6875 horizontal wells. Goodrich Petroleum announced on it's web site that it plans to develop the Haynesville Shale with Chesapeake in Caddo and DeSoto Parishes, Louisiana. The company also reports approximately 60,500 net acres of Haynesville Shale exposure in Northwest Louisiana and East Texas.
With Chesapeake, Plains, Goodrich, and others in the area, there is now a frenzy of leasing activity and who best to capture and record that leasing activity than Tobin!
Now more than ever, you need a Tobin!
With all of this activity going on, the need for current and accurate information is absolutely essential. That's where P2 Energy Solutions and Tobin come into play. With it's suite of Superbase digital map products such as the Digital Lease Ownership data and Well Completion / Permit data, trend maps can be custom generated to show a myriad of data layers including all competitor leasehold and/or wells drilled or locations permitted on a shale play.
These trend maps can be generated by companies that have a license to the Tobin data, or Tobin can create the maps for them through its Custom GIS Services Department.
Tobin collects operator competitor lease information monthly and maps the lease polygons on its 1:24,000 Superbase survey layer and ownership layer. The lease polygons mapped feature various attribute tables that show information such as lessor, lessee, deed acres, effective date of lease, term date, expiration date, bonus amount, rental amount, royalty percent (when available) and many more field attributes.
Maps generated can be simple or complex depending on the database query and the needs of the client. As an example, a client can request a Trend Map that shows all leases taken by Chesapeake Energy and include all wells drilled 10,000 feet and deeper within Caddo, Bossier and DeSoto Parish, Louisiana.
One such request was for a trend map that shows six companies that are actively taking leases in Harrison Co., Texas - a major area for the Bossier Shale Play (Fig. 1). The trend map was generated to show leases taken by GMX Resources, Bivins Energy, NEG Operating and three other companies. The leases were then labeled with the lessee name taken from the field attribute table. It's interesting to note that GMX Resources, as shown on the map, recently reported on its web site that it will begin its Haynesville and Bossier drilling program in the 3rd quarter of 2008 and will spud four rigs that will drill horizontal wells in its 100% owned acreage. They also reported that they have added 7,300 net acres in Harrison, Marion, and Cass Co. Texas and are planning to drill 4 - 6 wells in its 27,500 net Haynesville acreage.
Figure 1
In the second trend map (Fig. 2), we added the Superbase Tobin well permit locations to illustrate the relationship of lease location to permit location. The trend proves itself in that locations are staked in areas where leases are being taken. However, it may be interesting to note that it's the permit locations that fall outside of the trend area that warrant further investigation by exploration companies who are either active or wishing to enter the area.
Figure 2
For the final map, we were asked to generate a trend map that shows all competitor company leasehold over Caddo, Bossier, Desoto Parish, Louisiana and Harrison, Panola, Gregg and Rusk County, Texas.
Tobin data support specialist Cliff Walden performed a data query using our newly developed Tobin Data Tools software and created the competitor lease data trend map (Fig. 3) based on the lessee attribute table (Fig. 4) of our lease database.
Figure 4
Once the map is generated, it can be plotted at any scale and labeled with any attribute from the lease data attribute tables. A map of this type provides a competitive edge to any company that is seeking to enter the Haynesville and Bossier shale play-or any other exploration play for that matter-by giving them an advanced look at the leasing activity within a county or region.
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