Petrohawk Energy (HK) held a conference call on November 5, 2009, to discuss its third quarter earnings report, and made extensive comments on its operations in the Haynesville Shale.
Petrohawk Energy has reduced its drilling time on wells in the Haynesville Shale from 79 days in 2008, down to 47 in September 2009. The company expects a further improvement in 2010 down to 42 days.
Haynesville Shale Drilling Efficiencies
“During 2008, the average spud-to-spud time was 79 days. Many of these wells had pilot holes with extensive coring and logging operations, but we clearly had room for improvement. The average during the first half of 2009 was 69 days, which was improvement but fairly modest.”
“The month-over-month numbers for spud-to-spud during the third quarter were 68 in June, 61 in August and 47 in September and we expect the average for 2010 to be 42 days.”
“The most single significant factor has been the development of a PDC bit by our staff-drilling engineers that to this point has only been utilized by Petrohawk.”
Haynesville Shale Well Cost
"These improvements in our drilling operations are prominent in our forecast for drilling and completion costs for Haynesville wells in 2010 to be between $8 and $9 million. The completions in the Haynesville have also seen dramatic improvement. The average completion in January 2010 was $5.3 million, while the average in June had decreased to $3.5 million and had stayed in that range.”
“The majority of those savings are a result of significant decrease in the service-sector costs, but we have also been proactive in implementing fracture stimulation design changes than in some instances have lower cost and potentially increased productivity.”
Source: Seeking Alpha
