Houston’s Gastar Exploration Inc. expects to have initial flowback within the next two weeks from its second Meramec well in Kingfisher County, OK, which it completed with 34 hydraulic fracture stages.

The Holiday Road 2-1H, Gastar’s second well in the Meramec formation, has a lateral length of 4,300 feet and was completed using about 12 million pounds of proppant.

The first operated test well in the Meramec, Deep River 30-1H, also has produced for the first 90 days at a gross average sales rate of 713 boe/d, 61% weighted to oil.

Deep River, like Holiday Road, is in the STACK, aka, Sooner Trend of the Anadarko (Basin) mostly in Canadian and Kingfisher counties. The 90-day rate was inline with initial production rates by an independent reservoir engineers’ estimated ultimate recovery of 705,000 boe. Oil comprised about 50% of total boe on a wet gas basis.

Gastar has a 100% working (80% net revenue) interest in Deep River.

To ensure liquidity, Gastar earlier this month said it would sell about 25% of its STACK assets, and suspend its dividend (see Shale Daily, March 14). It is marketing around 26,000 net undeveloped acres of its 110,000 net acre position in the STACK, including hundreds of undrilled locations prospective for the Meramec formation, the Hunton Limestone formation and the Woodford Shale, with additional upside from the Oswego and Osage formations.

Meanwhile, the producer’s attempts to sell substantially all of its assets in the Appalachian Basin have been delayed.

Gastar agreed in February to sell the northeastern portfolio to an affiliate of Tug Hill Inc. for $80 million (see Shale Daily, Feb. 22). The transaction, originally set to close on Thursday (March 31) now is expected to close by April 8. Proceeds would be used to reduce debt.