Rumor Alert! - Halcon Cutting Back to 1 Rig
Rumors are Halcon is not pleased with its recent well results in the TMS.
Numerous sources have reported that the company has laid off its landmen abstractors in Wilkinson County, but have kept a few landmen employed for now.
This should open the door to someone picking up some very experienced land men...good luck to these guys.
Continuing with the rumors, Halcon plans to cut back to 1 rig in the TMS once the Gaulden is completed.(Subsequent to this post, I learned that it is the H&P Flex 3 rig currently on the Cottage Creek wells site that is supposed to be the one exiting the TMS, rather than the one at the Gaulden.)
Future plans are contingent upon results from wells currently being completed and future results from both their 1 rig operation and those of others in the area.
The fact is that the TMS is a tough shale to master and the central and western Wilkinson County area, in particular, was removed by several miles from known areas drilled, such that some nuances of drilling were causing Halcon problems.
I don’t know the details, but the drilling issues haven’t been fun to deal with.
And, it seems that the productivity results from these last few unreported wells haven’t been very good…though we don’t know exactly.
Frankly, some of the wells haven’t been completed, yet, so it is really premature to know what the results will be from these last several wells. A subtle hint that something was going on was when drilling plans shifted a month or so back by moving back toward the known area of success with the current drilling operations for the Gaulden and Creek Cottage East and West.
It is quite possible the play and Halcon's commericially producible holdings in it, especially, become much smaller going forward.
For now, Halcon doesn't seem to be in a position to continue to operate two rigs in an area where.
a) Drilling issues haven’t been resolved…1 rig is enough to work on that problem, it seems.
b) Productivity of the wells and/or the area of focus is in question.
Stay tuned!
For more complete coverage of what’s happening in the TMS, check out our Friday Report here:
https://tmsinsder.com/index.php/tms-news/2014-news/october-2014/friday-report-10-10-2014/