American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2017 - 64

SpecialReport: Eagle Ford Activity
He says EOG completed nine Austin
Chalk wells in Karnes County with shorter
average lateral lengths but comparable
production to its Eagle Ford wells on a
per foot of completed lateral basis. On
average, the nine Austin Chalk wells had
a treated lateral length of 4,000 feet per
well and average 30-day IP rates per well
of 2,645 boe/d (2,150 bbl/d of oil, 255
bbl/d of NGLs and 1.5 MMcf/d of natural
gas).
'Stack And Stagger'
Penn Virginia Corporation has 57,000
core net acres centered in Gonzales and
Lavaca counties on the eastern side of the
Eagle Ford play, according to Brooks. Penn
Virginia also completed a 19,600-acre acquisition from Devon Energy Corporation
in September that is mostly contiguous to
the company's existing leasehold.
According to Brooks, Penn Virginia
completed its eight-well "super pad" in the
third quarter that consisted of the adjoining
four-well Chicken Hawk pad and the fourwell Jake Berger pad. Two of the wells targeted the Upper Eagle Ford Shale/Lower
Austin Chalk and six wells targeted the
Lower Eagle Ford Shale, testing the "stack

and stagger" completion technique.
"Two Upper Eagle Ford tests are paired
with two Lower Eagle Ford tests, and the
rest of the wells are Lower Eagle Ford,"
he explains.
This is not the first time Penn Virginia
has used the "stack and stagger" completion technique, but Brooks says this is
the first time that it was done it using
slickwater. The company has not yet publicly announced the results of its eightwell super pad.
"Two years ago, we noticed that EOG
Resources, which has acreage offsetting
our leasehold, had wells that were outperforming ours," he continues. "There
were two things that we noticed that they
were doing differently. They were using
slickwater instead of hybrid gel fracs,
and they were pumping more proppant.
So, in August 2015, we started using
slickwater with higher proppant loads."
Penn Virginia went from using 1,5002,000 pounds of proppant per foot to
2,500 pounds per foot. Brooks says the
company is even testing 3,000 pounds
per foot. "It is not just pumping more
sand," he offers. "It is more sand in more
perforation clusters. We have gone from

In addition to developing the Eagle Ford on its 42,200 net acres in the core of the oil window in Karnes County, Tx., Encana also brought eight Austin Chalk horizontal wells on
line in the first four months of the year, including three in the first quarter with average
30-day IPs of 1,285 boe/d (1,000 barrels of oil). Shown here are drilling operations on Encana's Korth A Austin Chalk well.

64 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

five clusters per stage to testing eight-12
clusters per stage with better results. We
are contacting more rock."
Lager 3H Well
Penn Virginia divides its acreage into
Area 1, which is shallower, lower pressure,
and Area 2, which is deeper with high
pressure that requires an intermediate
casing string. The Lager 3H well, which
was completed in April, is the company's
first well that utilized the slickwater completion design in Area 2 of the Lower
Eagle Ford, according to Brooks. It produced 135,000 boe (70 percent oil) in
the first 90 days and is still making 1,000
boe/d. As a result of the acquisition from
Devon, Penn Virginia will increase its
working interest in the Lager 3H well
from 41 to 96 percent.
The Lager 3H was an experiment in
many ways for Penn Virginia. Besides
using the slickwater completion design
in Area 2 for the first time, Brooks says,
it was tested with an extended 8,000foot lateral with 40 fracture stages and
2,500 pounds of proppant per foot.
"The Lager 3H was a key well for
us," he maintains. "It gave us confidence
to pursue the Devon acreage."
The company also is actively managing
the choke size on the Lager 3H as well as
the Zebra 6H and 7H wells on the twowell Zebra pad, which were both completed
in Area 1 of the Lower Eagle Ford and
turned to sales in the second quarter.
"We first open the choke at 12⁄64-inch
and then open it to 20⁄64 to 22⁄64," Brooks explains. "It is really not about choke size
management, but drawdown management.
This is arresting some of the early-time
decline and will hopefully mean higher
EURs."
Because of the success of the Lager
3H, Penn Virginia is accelerating drilling
in Area 2. The Schacherl-Effenberger pad,
which originally was designed as a onewell pad, now will be a two-well pad.
Brooks says those two wells are scheduled
to be drilled in the fourth quarter.
He adds that Penn Virginia is well positioned with its Eagle Ford acreage. He
lists access to nearby markets, lots of existing infrastructure to eliminate oil and
gas take-away constraints, and a "highly
repeatable asset" as reasons that make
the Eagle Ford such an attractive play.
"We drilled more than 300 wells before
we started using slickwater fracs," Brooks
contends. "The wells are a lot more predictable now that we are using slickwater.

American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2017

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