Smackover / Brown
Dense Formation - Arkansas / Louisiana Oil & Natural Gas Field
What is the Smackover Brown Dense formation?
The Smackover / Brown Dense Formation is an oil and natural gas field located in Arkansas and Northern Louisiana.
The smackover brown dense formation is a new emerging oil field being explored by several major oil & gas drilling
companies. The Arkansas Shale could hold more than .1 - 1 billion barrels of oil which would be a huge
oil discovery. While the Smackover Brown Dense Play has not been mentioned a lot, landing leasing activity has
been picking up with many companies acquiring mineral rights. Could the Smackover Shale be as big as the Eagle Ford
Shale? Probably not, but if it is anywhere close, the Lower Smackover will be a huge success. Expect
to hear a lot more details about this shale field in 2012. More.....
The Horizontal Smackover Brown Dense Shale is between 8,500-11,100 feet deep and
between 325-540 ft thick. While a lot of people refer to this oil play as a shale, it is actually a mudstone and a limestome.
While the Smackover Brown Dense Oil Field's core area is in Southwest Arkansas and Northern Louisiana, it has the potential
to expand into Mississippi, Texas, and possibly extreme western Florida. While Florida is not known for and oil fields
or shale fields, Florida could eventually be tested. The geology of the lower smackover in northern Louisiana has
the trend formation sitting just below the haynesville shale. Another recent oil discovery to the south of both the haynesville shale and lower smackover shale, is the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale. For more on the Geology of the Brown Dense / Smackover Formation, see comments below.
Below is a list of prospective counties/parishes located in the Smackover Dense Brown Shale:
Arkansas (AR) - Ashley County, AR - Bradley County, AR - Calhoun County,
AR - Clark County, AR - Columbia County, AR - Hempstead County, AR - Howard County, AR - Lafayette County, AR - Little
River County, AR - Miller County, AR - Nevada County, AR - Ouachita County, AR - Sevier County, AR - Union County, AR
Louisiana (LA) - Bossier Parish, LA - Caddo Parish, LA - Claiborne Parish,
LA - Lincoln Parish, LA - Morehouse County, LA - Ouachita Parish, LA - Richland County, LA - Union Parish,
LA - Webster County, LA
Smackover Brown Dense Map - Lower Smackover Shale
Lower Smackover Shale Map
Smackover / Brown Dense Formation Geology - The Smackover / Brown
Dense Formation is a combination of different zones. This oil play has a lot of potential in all of the different
core zones. Here are some comments out of a recent conference regarding the geology of the Brown Dense Formation, Lower
Smackover Formation, Middle Smackover Formation, and the Upper Smackover Formation.
" The Brown Dense that we're going for is 300- to 500-foot thick. Right above the Brown Dense is the middle
Smackover. The middle Smackover is about 150-foot thick. It is a very, very tight bright white limestone, and we're considering
it to seal for the Brown Dense. And then above that tight limestone is the conventional Smackover that all of these fields
in Southern Arkansas and North Louisiana produce oil from for all these years. That upper Smackover has very high porosity,
permeability and has water. So somehow it is from a fault that would go from the porous [ph] Smackover all the way down into
the Brown Dense or from -- it would be really strange to have a frac that high. But if somehow you could fracture all the
Brown Dense through 200 feet of tight rock and then get into that, you can actually have water come from that up the interval.
"
Companies drilling in the Smackover Brown
Dense Shale - Smackover Brown Dense Shale Stocks
Southwestern Energy (SWN)- Southwestern Energy (SWN) is the top drilling exploration company in the Smackover Brown Dense Formation
- Included in the approximately 948,000 net acres are 487,000 net acres located in the Lower Smackover Brown Dense formation,
an unconventional oil reservoir found in southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana.
The company spud its first well in September, the Roberson 18-19 #1-15H located in Columbia County,
Arkansas, and is currently drilling the lateral portion of the well. This well has a vertical depth of approximately
9,200 feet and a planned horizontal lateral length of 4,000 feet. The well is expected to be completed in November. The company
will spud its second well, the Garrett 7-23-5H #1 located in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana
in November. This well has a planned total vertical depth of approximately 10,700 feet and a planned 7,900-foot horizontal
lateral. The company plans to drill up to 8 additional wells as we continue to test the concept in 2012. If the company's
drilling program yields positive results, it expects that activity in the play could increase significantly over the next
several years.
Update - Could you characterize what the 1 or 2 principal risks are in this exploratory well?
I think there's 2 risks. The one is, well, the one core we have in the area shows good porosity, permeability, all
the things that you'd hope to see in the core. You just don't know outside of that one core what the real characteristic of
all the rock is. You've done a lot of calculations, but you need to get some cores, you need to get some other wells with
a lot of data. And very well could be that there's parts of this play that don't have those characteristics and are too tight
or have some issue you can't frac on them. And so the play is smaller than you think it is. That would be one issue. I think
the other issue, you get the Brown Dense. The Brown Dense that we're going for is 300- to 500-foot thick. Right above the
Brown Dense is the middle Smackover. The middle
Smackover is about 150-foot thick. It is a very,
very tight bright white limestone, and we're considering it to seal for the Brown Dense. And then above that tight limestone
is the conventional Smackover that all of these
fields in Southern Arkansas and North Louisiana produce oil from for all these years. That upper Smackover has very high porosity, permeability and has water. So somehow it is from
a fault that would go from the porous Smackover
all the way down into the Brown Dense or from -- it would be really strange to have a frac that high. But if somehow you could
fracture all the Brown Dense through 200 feet of tight rock and then get into that, you can actually have water come from
that up the interval. So those are the 2 risks in the play.
Cabot Oil & Gas (COG) - Cabot Oil &
Gas (COG) is drilling in the lower smackover shale formation - COG is in the early stages of testing the Smackover Brown Dense
Formation and isn't providing any details quite yet. Stay tuned for news updates.
