Texas-based Comstock Resources recently offered a sliver of hope the Haynesville Shale may be receiving renewed attention from the industry.
As The Shreveport Times reports, the independent energy company has announced plans to suspend its oil-directed drilling activity in shale plays in Texas and Mississippi and move two rigs to Northeast Louisiana, where it would start up drilling for natural gas in the Haynesville Shale. Comstock expects to spend $161 million drilling 14 horizontal wells in the Haynesville and overlaying Bossier Shale.
The first well was spudded last week and the second rig is expected to move into DeSoto Parish at month’s end or in early February. Even though natural gas prices have dropped slightly since the announcement was made in mid-December—February futures were down 2.7% as of this morning to $2.86 per one million British Thermal Units—Comstock officials believe if the price hovers around $3 the company “will still see some pretty decent returns,” says Gary Guyton of the company’s investor relations division.
Comstock is the first to say publicly it’s turning its attention back to natural gas as the oil market continues its struggles with bottoming prices. But others are “definitely talking about it,” Ragan Dickens, Louisiana Oil and Gas Association’s North Louisiana communications director, says.
“We’re hearing reports that natural gas in general and the Haynesville Shale specifically is getting more appealing by the day,” Dickens says.
Shale exploration exploded in early 2008 and the Haynesville was touted as the highest-producing natural gas play in the nation. It rocketed until about 2012, when prices began dipping, causing producers to turn their horizontal extraction efforts to more lucrative oil-rich plays. Rigs pulled out of the Haynesville by the droves, leaving only a handful of companies continuing to hammer away at the trapped natural resource.
