Independents add Ordovician gas, plan big refrac program in Appalachia

Independents added more Ordovician gas in western New York's Finger Lakes region and mapped ambitious plans for 2005 in Pennsylvania.

The US unit of Talisman Energy Inc., Calgary, said its horizontal Soderblom well in Chemung County northwest of Elmira gauged an equipment-limited 19 MMcfd of gas with 2,300 psi flowing pressure from an undrilled graben in Ordovician Upper Black River. Measured depth is 12,050 ft.

Talisman's Fortuna Energy Inc. unit said Soderblom could be equivalent to the company's nearby Reed well, with cumulative production of 5.3 bcf since being placed on line last spring at 34 MMcfd.

Meanwhile, Range Resources Corp., Fort Worth, will delineate its shallow Harper-1 discovery in New York that cut 25 ft of Trenton pay last spring.

Range plans to evaluate deeper formations in 2005 in Bradford County, Pa., where it has 12-69% interest in 81,000 acres.

Range by Sept. 30 had drilled 214 of the 294 wells it planned in the Appalachian basin in 2004, and the 2005 program calls for 400 wells there. It was operating 10 rigs in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York in late October.

Range identified 200 tight sand wells in southwestern Pennsylvania's Cooperstown-Cramerven field as candidates for refracturing and will perform at least 100 refracs in 2005 if success continues.

Four refracs hiked gas production an average 60 Mcfd/well this year at an average finding cost of 52¢/Mcf and more than a 100% rate of return, the company said.

Most of the wells were initially treated 10 years ago or more with gelled water. The new jobs involve 70-quality nitrogen foam fracs that eliminate all gel and most of the water that were found to damage the Silurian Medina formation's low permeability.

Range earlier this year acquired the 50% it did not already own of Great Lakes Energy Partners LLC, Hartville, Ohio (OGJ Online, June 7, 2004).