Summer NAPE: Oil Companies Look To Form Partnerships

HOUSTON—Nearly a dozen companies took center stage during Summer NAPE to each give eight-minute pitches, hoping to lure partners for exploration, development and production opportunities in the U.S.

Among them was Josh Cornell, vice president of land for Panther Energy Co. III, who presented a Louisiana Austin Chalk opportunity—the Bloodhound prospect—in Vernon and Beauregard parishes.

“We have 50,000 net acres, mostly 100% ownership tracts. It’s a large contiguous, scalable footprint,” Cornell told a crowd gathered Aug. 15 to hear the prospect preview pitches. “We project over 26 operated DSUs [drill spacing units].”

He added the deep overpressured Austin Chalk Formation is built for long laterals with the company’s asset having a TVD range between 14,000 ft and 16,000 ft.

The Austin Chalk, which spans over 600 miles from the Mexico border into Mississippi, has sparked renewed interest from oil and gas players such as ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil Corp., which added the play to their exploration portfolios.

Others are already seeing success. EOG Resources, which completed five wells in the South Texas Austin Chalk in second-quarter 2018, captured the spotlight in 2017 when the Eagle Ranch 14-1H well in Avoyelles Parish tested at a rate of 1,120 barrels of oil per day and 1,157 million cubic feet of gas per day.