American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2018 - 64

SpecialReport: The Eagle Ford and Austin Chalk
and established valuable relationships
with quality service providers. We believe
we now are well positioned to apply the
knowledge we gained to carry out this
continuous program."
Development Strategy
The first three wells in the continuous
program will be the Vega 1, 2 and 3 horizontal wells on the original Wilson pad.
Yeager says the first two Wilson wells
will be shut in during drilling for safety
reasons, and then the rig will move to
another location to continue drilling after
the Vega wells are finalized.
He points out that these wells will be
6,500 feet vertical depth with 7,700-foot
laterals. Freedom is drilling the wells
600 feet apart. It drilled the first Vega
well in only 11.7 days.
"These wells are fairly inexpensive
by industry standards," Yeager maintains.
"They are about $5.3 million-$1.3 million
for drilling and $4.0 million for fracturing,
cleanup and everything else."
Freedom is drilling in the Lower Eagle
Ford, and its wells are 80 percent liquids

(65 percent oil and 15 percent NGLs)
and 20 percent natural gas.
"Because our crude is lighter (45 degrees API), we are getting premium
Light Louisiana Sweet-based pricing,
$5-$7 above West Texas Intermediate,"
he lauds. "Some days, our price is close
to $80 a barrel. So our wells are less
costly with a high liquids strategy and
premium pricing."
When Freedom drilled its first two
Wilson wells, its perforation clusters were
40 feet apart. Yeager says it decreased
that to 20 feet in four Hovencamp wells.
"Because of that, we obviously are
using more water and a lot more-but
smaller-sand," he reveals. "We get about
30 percent of that back as produced water.
We will continue to use more sand, but
since we have to purchase our water, we
are testing how much is the right amount.
We don't have a disposal well on our
acreage, so that means we have to handle
the water twice."
Yeager notes that the Eagle Ford shale
is 400 feet thick in that part of South
Texas. As a result, there are two intervals

With 100,000 Eagle Ford acres in Webb, LaSalle, McMullen and Live Oak counties, Tx.,
SilverBow Resources Inc. is bucking a trend by completing dry gas wells. Drilling foursix wells a pad with average lateral lengths of 7,500 feet, according to Chief Executive
Officer Sean Woolverton, SilverBow is bringing in wells with estimated ultimate recoveries
of 12 billion-15 billion cubic feet from the Lower Eagle Ford, and 10 Bcf-12 Bcf from the
Upper Eagle Ford.

64 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

to target. "We have identified 200 locations
on our acreage in the Eagle Ford alone,"
he adds. "The Eagle Ford is one of the
greatest source rocks in the world, and
has been the source for the Austin Chalk.
Others around us have started drilling
horizontal wells in the Austin Chalk, but
we haven't tested that yet."
Dry Gas
While many are targeting the oil and
wet-gas windows in the Eagle Ford, Houston-based SilverBow Resources Inc. is
bucking the trend, putting its efforts into
what CEO Sean Woolverton calls the
"re-emergence of Eagle Ford dry gas."
"Petrohawk's Eagle Ford discovery
well in 2008 was a dry gas well in LaSalle
County," points out Woolverton. "The
industry was chasing dry gas in the shale
reservoirs at that time. There was tremendous activity in the wet and dry gas windows from 2008 to 2012. Then the oil
play started to emerge, which coincided
with the drop in gas prices."
Woolverton joined SilverBow in March
2017 and put together a new management
team while the company increased its
acreage from 65,000 to 100,000 acres
and began targeting the dry gas window.
Today, its wells are producing 80-83 percent gas and 17-20 percent liquids, which
are split evenly between oil and NGLs.
"People ask me why we produce gas
when prices are sub-$3," he ponders.
"There are several reasons. There was a
very attractive entry cost because most
companies were chasing oil. And gas is
very attractive when you look at fullcycle returns. The Eagle Ford is a worldclass reservoir, and those initial gas wells
10 years ago used shorter laterals and
smaller stimulation designs much different
from what we are using today. Many of
those wells were not drilled in the primary
zone, either."
SilverBow has 100,000 acres in the
dry gas window on the western side of
the Eagle Ford play in Texas' Webb,
LaSalle, McMullen and Live Oak counties.
Woolverton says the wells on the western
side of its leasehold in Webb and western

American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2018

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