An undisclosed U.S. buyer with “significant experience in drilling” has paid $87 million for 85,000 acres in the Louisiana Austin Chalk play.
The sale, announced Wednesday, was made by exploration and production company Amelia Resources, which did not disclose exactly where the land is located within the play. However, company President Kirk Barrell says in a prepared statement that “our acreage block is geologically focused targeting a shallower, normally pressured, oil-rich, porous reservoir across an unfaulted monoclinal dip.”
The Austin Chalk play is self-serving carbonate reservoir about 30 miles wide and 650 miles long, spanning from Texas to the middle of Louisiana. Barrell says that “with the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale occurring 700 feet below the Austin Chalk, the updip region of the play presents a potential ‘stack play’ opportunity.”
Last month, Lafayette-based PetroQuest Energy purchased 24,600 acres in the play. EOG Resources has also reportedly leased more than 130,000 acres in the play.
Headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, Amelia Resources also has offices in St. Francisville and New Orleans. The company says it has evaluated over 2,000 wells in the Austin Chalk play across Texas and Louisiana, and is planning to debut a second large acreage package at the NAPE Summit in Houston in early February.
