Category Archives: Burket Formation

Upper Devonian Drilling

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Upper Devonian

EQT has announced that it will start drilling Upper Devonian formations along with the Marcellus shale.  This is a great move, and while I don’t like EQTs stance on post-production costs or know anybody that really likes working with them, I have to applaud it.  Here’s why.

The Upper Devonian lies just a few hundred feet above the Marcellus shale.  It produces gas, sometimes wet gas that is rich in ethane, propane, butane and the like.  It doesn’t produce as much gas as the Marcellus, though, so a lot of companies have ignored it.

If memory serves, you can improve production from any acre by about 50% if you can produce from both the Marcellus and the Upper Devonian.

However, if you develop the Marcellus without developing the Upper Devonian formations you are unlikely to be able to develop the Upper Devonian.  This is because the fractures you make in the Marcellus migrate upwards for hundreds of feet, right up to the Upper Devonian formations.  When you go back later to fracture the Upper Devonian you lose a lot of, if not all of, your fracking pressure into the existing fractures.

In order to take advantage of the Upper Devonian formations you have to frack them at the same time you do the Marcellus formations.

Anybody out there negotiating their own lease should ask the company whether they are planning to develop the Upper Devonian, and find out why they are not.  They may have good reasons, such as it simply won’t produce much gas in your area.

You probably won’t be able to convince them to change their plans unless you control all of hundreds of acres, but you could always tell them you won’t sign a lease unless there’s something in there saying they will develop the Devonian with the Marcellus.  It’s worth a shot.

 

Burket Formation Data, Another Point Against Force Pooling

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Zipper Fracking

As you well know if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, there are more producible formations underneath West Virginia than just the Marcellus and the Utica.  The Rogersville shale, among others, over in the western part of the state is getting some interest, and the Burket formation in the northern part of the state is finally getting some real air time, too.

Wrightstone Energy Consulting has put together some data on the Burket.

It’s not a very thick formation in West Virginia, but it’s pretty close to the Marcellus shale, lying just a few hundred feet above it here in West Virginia.  It’s not a ridiculously productive formation, but when drilling from one pad to the Marcellus and Utica it makes sense to drill to the Burket as well.

The best locations for Burket drilling appear to be in Doddridge, western Harrison, western Marion, and western Monongalia counties.  There’s a little bit in Wetzel, Tyler, and Lewis counties where they border the previously named counties, too.  There may be some good production in a small strip of Upshur, Barbour, and Tucker counties as well.  We don’t anticipate much development there because it makes more sense to drill where you already have pads, but we also know that Consol/CNX/Dominion was drilling to the Burket in Barbour county a couple of years ago, so if gas prices go up a little we expect to see them pursue that activity again.

By far the most interesting aspect of the data that Wrightstone Energy presents suggests that producing the Burket with the Marcellus could yield increased production from one or the other, or even both.  Fracking the Marcellus and then coming back later to frack the Burket may result in wasted energy as the fractures may communicate with the previous Marcellus fractures, resulting in fewer new fractures.  However, if both are fracked at the same time, or “zipper fracked“, the resulting production from both formations could be significantly higher.

We hate to harp on this one subject yet again, but this is yet another reason why it is important for mineral owners to be able to say no to a lease and not have to worry about being force pooled.  If the lessee is not going to produce the Burket with the Marcellus the mineral owner should be able to say they want to wait until a producer who wants to produce both formations comes along.

 

The Upper Devonian Formations

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Burket Formation

Clients of Nuttall Legal have long known about the Upper Devonian formation, also known as the Burket formation here in West Virginia.  It’s shallower than the Marcellus, and not terribly thick, but has good potential to produce natural gas.  Gas and Oil Mag has an article on the Upper Devonian formation that should be interesting to anyone thinking of signing an oil and gas lease.

The important point to remember is that the Marcellus and the Utica are not the only producible formations down there.  The Upper Devonian is probably not the last of the formations, either.  As technologies change and the price of gas increases with demand, formations that were previously uninteresting will become financially feasible.  The lease that you sign today could be in effect for generations as the original formation is developed and runs low, only to be replaced by a well to another formation.  You have to think to the future as much as you possibly can when negotiating an oil and gas lease.