Wonder where is he employed now?
So, they (Colgate) are drilling horizontal wells on your property with
laterals under the city of Pecos? I know a land man for a big midstream
company out of Dallas that bought up 1708 acres of surface in one contiguous farm near the Reeves County Detention Center for
$4.4 Million…and Colgate has got permits for 12 wells on the property
for $1MIllion per location. Colgate is structuring it so they pay royalties to residential owners in the city of Pecos. I dunno how such wells under Pecos are going to remain profitable with THOUSANDS of royalty holders
and routine maintenance to keep the wells in compliance as overhead. But, I haven’t got a penny invested in that…so I got nothing to lose. Just an interested observer…that’s me.
near Verhalen
Lawrence Rayburn…I have been following your comments and helpful information with interest for several weeks! Your knowledge sounds “experienced”. What is your take on all the horizontal Chinook wells being drilled by Apache on Section 36 Block 56? Why so many wells so close together and is that area considered Alpine high? Thanks.
JB - I know you didn’t ask me but I have been watching the Apache Alpine High stuff pretty closely because I have some unleased sections 1-3 miles from their Chinook and Blackhawk wells. That area is considered Alpine High but they may be drilling any number of formations from shallower stuff all the way through Wolfcamp and down to Barnett and Woodford. I believe posted results for Chinook and Blackhawk are Barnett/Woodford. Some of those wells may be at different depths and some of them are designed to help them determine what will be the best long term completion type and well spacing. They are in early stages of figuring out how to get the most bang for their buck. I think those Chinook wells have somethign like 200’ well spacing which is very close and would indicate either the rock is very tight or that they are doing more of a wine rack approach where the laterals are at alternating depths.
They are calling that whole area of stacked shale plays Alpine High. It
Curves around the mountains on the east side of the mountains along
Hovey Road to the Big Valley from Fort Stockton to Alpine…Apache is
developing a field near Hovey and Chancellor. From Balmorhea north
to north of Toyah and west into the eastern edge of Culberson county
back south and on the west side of Saddleback mountain…they are
calling all of that Alpine High…but, it will change as they develop the various pinch outs and stratigraphic traps due to the 3 major earthquake fault lines that run parallel to one another from Guadalupe Peak on the
Texas New Mexico border to Star Mountain in the Davis Mountains on Hwy 17 south of Balmorhea. Those faults cause schisms (breaks) in the
subsurface stratigraphy and ‘natural’ barriers trapping oil and gas in the anticlines the fault zones cross. The fault zones caused schisms in the anticlines that pooled liquid hydrocarbons in certain ‘cells’ of what they are calling Alpine High of the Delaware Basin. They are gradually proving that the same formations are along Hwy 90 from Valentine to Van Horn…The Davis Mountains upthrust including Fort Davis and Alpine/Marfa is SURROUNDED by the stacked shale plays. The amount of still untapped gas and oil in the Delaware Basin is STUPENDOUS…bigger than anything anywhere else in the world.
The same formations continue under the Rio Grand river into Mexico where there’s ANOTHER stupendous huge field that can be developed.
We’re just beginning to scratch the surface of all the development that is possible in the Delaware Basin.
near Verhalen
Lawerence, based upon what you wrote “developing a field near Hovey and Chancellor. From Balmorhea north to north of Toyah and west into the eastern edge of Culberson county back south and on the west side of Saddleback mountain…they are” do you have any idea on how far north of Toyah this could be. We are about 12 miles north Block 58 Sections 16-15.
M Smith…
Apache is pretty good and quick about getting their infrastructure in place and actually producing the well. They already have a couple of recompressor plants north of Toyah and a liquids knock out plant
on the west side of 2903 where it crosses IH10. The 30 inch gathering
lines are already in place along county road 336. They should be able to
nipple up that well to their gathering lines in 30 days or so. Have you
noticed if they have already set any vessels on location besides
holding tanks? They will have to have high pressure gas/oil/water separators on location directing knocked out liquids to oil, condensate, and produced water holding tanks…then connections to those 30 inch
gathering lines to transport production to their cryogenic liquids knock out plant near Balmorhea.
Old production construction hands like myself can look at the location
and tell you how long before it goes into full production.
I’ll stick by that 30 to 60 days prediction for Apache, however. They’ll be flaring gas there for probably 45 days before they go online with the well.
near Verhalen
Unless you have moved, your address is in your lease. If the well is successful, they will send you a Royalty Division Order setting out your Decimal Interest in the Unit. When they get that back they will release your funds. You will have to ask them whether they have an automatic deposit option or not.
Mary and Charles, there are over 1700 DUC wells in Texas. A DUC well
is Drilled, but UnCompleted. Some of those wells remain in that condition, non productive, for YEARS…depending on the capitalization of the company that is developing the field. They run short of money and leave the well to languish until they get more money.
Across the nation, there are over 7,000 DUC wells.
near Verhalen
I predict as they prove the fields on both sides of Hwy 90 down to Valentine, they will find the liquid hydrocarbons there will make the ones south and west of Toyah look like nothing in comparison.
BUT, the water flowing to the San Solomon spring at Toyahvale comes from the Valentine aquifer through LAVA tubes under the mountains.
We don’t want to screw that flow up. So, all drilling will have to be CAREFULLY done.
near Verhalen
M. Smith -
I thought you might find the pdfs below helpful.
JB…That’s over close to John Lanaham and David Shifflett. Primexx is
soon to be all over that but whoever Panther Exploration merged with
and took their name has now drilled 5 wells there and plans another 10.
A lot of that acreage is owned and operated by Randy Taylor and
the operational cotton gin out there is owned by Don Curley.
Primexx is steadily marching from Hwy 17 to 2903 from the old cotton warehouses on 17 just south of FM 869 to 2903, but Oxy is hot on their
heels and Noble is right in there competing with them. Primexx is currently drilling on Holderman’s land and east south east of Hwy 17 and FM 2448 on Ivan Hurd’s land. All around and near me.
near Verhalen
JB…Yes, that’s all part of the Alpine High stacked shale formation on the east side of those three earthquake fault lines I spoke of before. By the way
on FM 869 where county road 130 comes into it from the east, just south of that intersection on the west side of the road a SINKHOLE is forming.
IF you ‘fly’ to that location on Google Earth and hover at 2800 feet
apparent altitude, you will SEE the jagged cracks converging on a spot
near the western side of FM869. Looks to me like it’s gonna be
quite a bit bigger than the one that opened up in 1980 between Wink and Kermit in Winkler county.
It’s very close to the Cherry Creek fault line.
Incidentally, saltwater disposals are NOT causing the swarms of small earthquakes around Pecos. The Rio Grand Rift has been locked for centuries, the pressure is mounting, and there is going to be a quake with land slippage along the Rift.
near Verhalen
near Verhalen
That bid was an error by the landman who filled in the paperwork, but the company was legally obligated to pay.
So, he was supposed to top Apache’s bid by $1 Million and made a clerical error which cost Primexx? Interesting!
Have any of you land owners been contacted by operators wanting to build a man camp on your property to house their workers? The projection is that 60,000 workers will influx Reeves county over the next 6 months to support the drilling and production operations. Many will be nomads, but many will also want to settle here IF they can find acreage to own and build a home on.
near Verhalen
Lawrence, I’m north of Pecos on FM 1216 and have 30 acres that I have improved. Any company interested hit me up. Also I have a question regarding RRC Public GIS Viewer API 36330 Fiery Furnace Identify Wells. Who’s names should go on the Service List at the bottom of the page?
I’d like to see private housing developments all over Reeves, Culberson, and Hudspeth counties with small acreage where a young couple could put down roots, build a home, raise children, pets, and livestock…where they could go off grid with solar power, pump their own water from a well, and raise their own vegetables in greenhouses…and meat, milk, and poultry in their own barns…to be able to afford to OWN that as a FAMILY business/home so they would STAY in the area. But, they don’t have a chance when they need to find land to buy while paying $1000 and up each month for a slot to park an RV trailer…and the land is price gouged to $6000/acre.
near Verhalen
That’s an amazing story! Sounds like a very expensive education to me…I need to find that landman and see if they want to lease Section 44 of Block 55!
Lawrence, 60,000 workers? I did pay $200+/ night recently for the Best Western in Pecos, but that sounds pretty high. Rig count in Reeves has stabilized around 70 the last few weeks. Also, just because there are 5 layers of shale doesn’t mean they have figured out how to drill each layer profitably yet. It will probably take years for them to crack the code on each layer. Plus, each layer has better and worse sub layers, so the wine rack staggering is also a few years off, until they figure out how to drill all the sub layers. In short, it is a long term development. Not everyone or everything is going to come up roses. But overall, it is the best and biggest boom the area has seen, no doubt. The biggest factor not discussed is investor sentiment. It is impossible to understate how much of this activity is driven by huge amounts of investor money being poured in. The caution is a lot of these investors have a strong herd mentality and their knowledge and research is very superficial and short term. When the herd decides there are greener pastures elsewhere, more than a few people standing near the gate are going to get trampled.