BP plc has brought online a “highly productive” natural gas well in the Mancos Shale of New Mexico, with early production rates said to be the highest achieved in the San Juan Basin in 14 years.

The Northeast Blanco Unit (NEBU) 602 Com 1H well achieved an average 30-day initial production rate of 12.9 MMcf/d, BP said. The successful well is in a group of gas-rich assets acquired in late 2015 from Devon Energy Corp., which expanded BP’s existing San Juan position and in particular, improved access to the Mancos.

“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, which we believe could become one of the leading shale plays in the U.S.,” said BP’s Dave Lawler, CEO of the Lower 48 operations.

The well was drilled with a 10,000-foot lateral, in the NEBU, a section of federal lands in New Mexico’s San Juan and Rio Arriba counties, where BP has had a presence since the 1920s.

BP’s Lower 48 unit, continuously one of the largest San Juan producers, operates about 3,900 wells across the basin, which spans southwestern Colorado and northeastern New Mexico.

BP’s management team elected to separate the Lower 48 business in early 2014, and it began operating it as an individual unit in early 2015. BP, traditionally housed in Houston, is opening a headquarters in Denver for the Lower 48 operations during 2018 to be closer to most of its onshore assets and proved reserves.

BP’s Lower 48 business has operations in Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming, as well as in seven basins that cover an area roughly the size of New Jersey.

With a material resource base of about 7.5 billion bbl across six million net acres, BP Lower 48 currently has average production of nearly 300,000 boe/d net.