Chesapeake, Petrohawk continue to dominate in Haynesville Shale

Chesapeake Energy takes honors as the top-producing operator in the Haynesville Shale play in northwest Louisiana and northeast Texas. Chesapeake ranks as the ninth-largest producer in the United States in total assets and is 11th largest in stockholder equity. The company is one of the largest producers of natural gas in the country.

Chesapeake owns leading positions in the Barnett, Fayetteville, Haynesville, Marcellus, and Bossier natural gas shale plays and in the Eagle Ford, Granite Wash, and various other unconventional oil plays. The company has also vertically integrated its operations and owns substantial midstream, compression, drilling and oilfield service assets.

Houston-based Petrohawk Energy ranks second in Haynesville production. Petrohawk's assets are concentrated in the Haynesville and Lower Bossier shale plays, the Fayetteville Shale of central Arkansas, and the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas. Petrohawk is involved in a 50/50 joint venture (KinderHawk Field Services LLC) with KinderMorgan Energy Partners involving the company's midstream business in the Haynesville Shale. Petrohawk has also closed the sale of its interests in Terryville Field, located in Lincoln and Claiborne Parishes, La., to a private company for $320 million.

Coming in third in production is privately held KCS Resources. The fourth- and fifth-placed Haynesville operators are Encana Oil & Gas USA and EXCO Resources, respectively.

Haynesville operations.
Photo courtesy of Chesapeake Energy.

On June 30, Dallas-based EXCO closed on a transaction in which it acquired about 20,000 net acres in the Haynesville and Bossier shale plays from Southwestern Energy for about $356 million. EXCO and its JV partner, BG Group, will jointly develop the assets.

Exxon Mobil Corp., currently one of the top 10 producers in the Haynesville, plans to increase drilling activity for unconventional resources such as shale gas in various areas onshore the US during the second half of this year.

In an analyst conference call in late July, ExxonMobil's vice president of investor relations, David Rosenthal, said, "We plan to further increase activity in the Haynesville, Fayetteville, Marcellus, Eagle Ford, and Bakken shale plays."