BP believes it has found a fertile new source of shale gas in New Mexico, on land it bought from a US shale driller two years ago.
The British oil major said one of its natural gas wells in the Mancos Shale reached the region’s highest production rate in 14 years, pumping 12.9 million cubic feet of gas a day in an initial 30-day period.
By comparison, horizontal gas wells in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas produce some 8 to 12 million cubic feet of gas a day, according to energy research firm Wood Mackenzie.
“It exceeded their expectations,” said Linda Htein, senior research manager of Wood Mac’s upstream research team. “But it’s still early days.”
Dave Lawler, head of BP’s shale gas unit, said the discovery means the Mancos Shale – part of the San Juan Basin, which stretches across New Mexico and Colorado – could become one of the nation’s top shale plays.
“This result supports our strategic view that significant resource potential exists in the San Juan Basin, and gives us confidence to pursue additional development of the Mancos Shale,” Lawler said.
But it’s going to take more than one prolific well to convince the US oil industry the Mancos Shale is the next hotspot for shale gas.
“The next test now will be showing some repeatability,” Htein said. “Will they be able to repeat these results in another five wells? They think there’s potential for scalability here.”
In late 2015, BP had snagged 33,000 acres in the San Juan Basin from Devon Energy, a year after announcing plans to formed a self-contained US shale segment that was first headquartered in Houston. BP plans to open a new headquarters for the unit in Denver next year.
BP said its gas well in the Mancos Shale was drilled sideways 10,000 feet in a US government-owned region called the Northeast Blanco Unit, in San Juan and Rio Arriba counties. The company had originally estimated it could drill some 1,600 wells with 5,000-foot lateral sections across the San Juan Basin.
This article first appeared on the Houston Chronicle – an Energy Voice content partner. For more click here.
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