Energy advocate says Tuscaloosa Shale could be more valuable than Haynesville

The Tuscaloosa Marine Shale that stretches across central Louisiana will not excite frenzy equal to that surrounding the Haynesville Shale, an oil and gas executive told the Alexandria Rotary Club on Tuesday, but it could eventually prove more valuable, The (Alexandria) Town Talk reports. The Tuscaloosa Shale formation is located north of the Capital Region—covering most or all of Rapides, Avoyelles and Vernon parishes—and also stretches into southwest Mississippi. It’s still in early exploratory phases, but it could yield significant oil discoveries. “I think [the Tuscaloosa play] is going to be a big deal,” Chris John, a former congressman from Louisiana and president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, told the Rotary club. “It’s not going to be quite the heyday Haynesville was, because that was boomtown stuff. People see what happened there and say, ‘When is that going to happen here?’ That’s a bad thing to compare. It’s not going to happen here. The economics and environment of the oil and gas industry have changed a lot since then.” John says he believes the Tuscaloosa “is going to be more steady” than the Haynesville. “It’s going to be slower growth, but with a more sustained period of activity,” he says. The Tuscaloosa has an advantage over the Haynesville in that it is expected to contain significant oil deposits, a commodity that fetches a higher price than natural gas. Several companies have pulled their rigs out of the Haynesville Shale as the price of gas dropped. Read the full story here.