Wildcat

Approach Resources Inc. is selling its 50% interest in an oil pipeline system in the southern Midland Basin for proceeds of $108 million.

It’s been a long time coming, but Double Eagle Petroleum has spudded a wildcat, Table Top Unit No. 1, in the Christmas Meadows prospect in Summit County, UT, at the intersection of the Overthrust Belt and the Unita Mountains in the corner of the Green River Basin play. The hold-up on going into what is believed to be a large anticline dome first spotted by Gulf Oil in the 1970s, has been getting a permit to drill in the environmentally sensitive area up against the High Unita Mountain Wilderness area. Others — Amoco and Chevron — staked it out and then moved on after years of waiting. Permitting for Double Eagle has involved dealing for more than 10 years with both the National Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Double Eagle first acquired some leases in 1984 and has added to them, acquiring the last critical acreage in 2003. The company now has an interest in 41,237 gross acres, according to CEO Steve Hollis, who says they are estimating initial drilling time for the first well at about 100 days — or before Christmas. Double Eagle has a 25% working interest in the Christmas Meadows prospect. The first well is initially targeting the Frontier and Dakota formations, both combination oil and gas plays, at about 15,000 feet. “Once we know the structure is there, we can go deeper,” Hollis said. The deeper plays in the area of 20,000 feet likely would be all gas. Some estimates have put potential reserves at 2 Tcf.

It’s been a long time coming, but Double Eagle Petroleum has spudded a wildcat, Table Top Unit No. 1, in the Christmas Meadows prospect in Summit County, UT, at the intersection of the Overthrust Belt and the Unita Mountains in the corner of the Green River Basin play.

Marathon Oil Corp.’s Canadian subsidiary is permanently abandoning a deepwater wildcat natural gas well offshore Nova Scotia after failing to find any commercial quantities of oil and natural gas. When Marathon first discovered gas in the Annapolis block in 2002, it had estimated there could be between 5-15 Tcf of natural gas within the play (see NGI, Aug. 19, 2002).

Marathon Oil Corp.’s Canadian subsidiary is permanently abandoning a deepwater wildcat natural gas well offshore Nova Scotia after failing to find any commercial quantities of oil and natural gas. When Marathon first discovered gas in the Annapolis block in 2002, it had estimated there could be between 5-15 Tcf of natural gas within the play (see Daily GPI, Aug. 14, 2002).