This past Monday, one of our favorite drillers announced a blockbuster gas well…
The well is in the quickly-emerging Niobrara Shale in the prolific Piceance Basin.
The Piceance is located in Northeast Colorado. We’ve known about it for several decades, but the basin has garnered increasing attention in recent years because of widespread drilling to get its gas. There’s so much natural gas there, it’s been dubbed “The Gas Factory.”
Excitement has been building in the Piceance, as many drillers have been operating there for the past few years.
You may remember me telling you about the Piceance when I wrote about it in December of last year. That’s when I told you that EnCana had used an emerging drilling technique called multi-well pad drilling to access more natural gas in the Piceance. EnCana was able to drill a stunning 51 wells from a single pad site.
The primary target of gas development has been the Williams Fork Formation. The Williams Fork is a several-thousand-foot thick section of shale, sandstone, and coal deposited.
The formation has long been known to contain natural gas, but the geologic dynamics of the formation made it uneconomical to produce for decades…
In 1969 an atomic device was detonated in a well drilled into the Williams Fork southwest of Rifle, Colorado, in an attempt to fracture the rock in an effort to commercially extract the natural gas.
But it was a failure.
Fast-forward to today: Advances in hydraulic, horizontal fracturing within the past decade — along with higher gas prices — have made gas wells economic in the area.
In 2007 the basin contained five of the top 50 U.S. gas fields in proved reserves.
However, just as the fossil fuel-rich Permian Basin has given birth to multiple formations like the Cline Shale, so too has the Piceance given birth to multiple pay zones. Williams Fork is one of these.
Another of these pay zones is the Niobrara Shale.
The Niobrara Shale is a shale formation located within the Piceance. It spans into Northwest Kansas, Southwest Nebraska, and Southeast Wyoming.
Oil and natural gas have been found deep below the surface at depths of 3,000 to 14,000 feet.
I’ve identified the largest producer in the Niobrara.
It’s not a household name…
And even though it controls thousands of drill sites in the Niobrara, it trades for less than $18 a share.
But here’s the deal: The company is making some serious waves.
Monday it announced a monster well in the Niobrara. The well exceeded one billion cubic feet of natural gas production in just over 100 days of operation.
Now, that might sound like gibberish if you’re not accustomed to oil and gas jargon…
At that rate of production, the company expects this well to produce in its first four months what a typical well in the Piceance produces over its 25- to 30-year life!
That, dear reader, is the miracle of multi-well pad drilling.
The company I’m referring to was recently recommended by Keith Kohl in his Oil & Gas Trader advisory. In just three weeks’ time, the stock is already up nearly 8%.
Keith expects more good news from the company as they report more drill results from their Niobrara wells.
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Forever wealth,
Brian Hicks
Check us out on YouTube!Brian is a founding member and President of Angel Publishing. He writes about general investment strategies for Wealth Daily and Energy and Capital. For more on Brian, take a look at his editor’s page.
