The Black Warrior is not on the radar screens of many companies, but a small group of firms that have made this basin a core area consider it a comfortable home. Gas has been produced from shallow fields in the Black Warrior for almost a hundred years. In the 1980s, the basin gained prominence when its southeastern portion served as the proving ground for the world's coalbed-methane industry. Today, drilling in the Paleozoic conventional sandstone plays continues at a steady rate, and a deep play in the Cambro-Ordovician carbonates is drawing fresh industry attention. The Black Warrior is much like the Arkoma Basin of eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas, with gas-prone Mississippian and Pennsylvanian reservoirs producing from stratigraphic or combination traps. The area is highly faulted, and the fluvio-deltaic and marginal marine reservoirs come and go. Lateral shale seals, stacked sand bodies and crosscutting faults all combine to create many prospects for companies hunting gas fields. Drilling and completion costs for typical shallow wells range from $150,000 to $250,000 per well, not including land and prospect development costs. All told, some 1.1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas has been produced from around 1,100 conventional wells in the Black Warrior. Rex Wilkinson, Stonewall, Louisiana-based consulting geologist, notes that newcomers should keep in mind that the basin is relatively complicated: "Tectonic episodes such as the Appalachian and Ouachita mountain-building events, and the formation of the Cincinnati Arch, are combined with typical Gulf Coast subsidence. Faults are common, and some down-to-the-basin faults display gross displacements as great as 4,000 feet. Minor faults are everywhere." The bulk of conventional production in the basin is attributed to Mississippian sands, with the Carter, Sanders and Lewis the most prolific reservoirs. Most often the antithetic faults are the ones that trap. The reservoirs are relatively tight compared with their Gulf Coast neighbors, although a good well might have porosities of 18%, says Wilkinson. Most wells are fracture stimulated or acidized to enhance productivity. "We've almost made a home in northwestern Alabama," says Ron Taylor, general manager of S. Lavon Evans Jr. Operating Co. Inc. Last year, the Laurel, Mississippi-based firm drilled 17 wells in the Black Warrior Basin; the prior year it drilled 12. "The economics are good." In the shelf play, which occupies about a six-county area straddling the two states, well depths vary from 2,000 to 6,000 feet, and drilling and completion costs are quite reasonable. "It's a no-frills play," says Taylor. Most of the fields occupy less than two sections, and the typical accumulation might support three wells. Per-well recoveries range from 500 million to 4 billion cubic feet (Bcf). "It's relatively simple to put small land blocks together as leases continue to come available from large held-by-production holdings, and there aren't many leaseholders per unit." The independent's success has been satisfying: In 2000, Evans discovered County Line Field, on the border between Lamar and Pickens counties, Alabama. The #1 Holliman 36-10 was a dual producer in the Carter and Lewis sands, completed flowing at a combined rate of 1.6 million cubic feet of gas per day from depths of 4,200 to 4,500 feet. The company followed that success with the discovery of Reedy Creek Field in Lamar County in 2001. The #1 Hardy 31-12 flowed 1.4 million cubic feet of gas per day through perforations at 2,642-52 feet in Carter sand. This year, Evans found a field in Pickens County, this one with some oil production. The #1 Carpenter 9-4 flowed oil at the rate of 188 barrels per day and gas at estimated rates ranging from 80,000 to 120,000 cubic feet per day from Chandler sand, perforated at 4,796 to 4,804 feet. Another company that likes the shallow plays in the Black Warrior is Ridgeland, Mississippi-based Paramount Petroleum Co. Inc. The privately held independent picked the Black Warrior as one of its core areas about three years ago. "The basin is gas-prone, it's less mature than the Arkoma Basin, and our staff is very familiar with the play," says president Bob Schneeflock. "This is not a home run area, but you can get base hit after base hit." Prospecting in the shallow play is mainly done with regional 2-D seismic data and subsurface well control. The low cost to test a prospect means that 3-D seismic has not been prevalent in the basin, although prospectors commonly use regional 2-D grids to pin down the locations of faults. "There are two ways to mitigate risk," says Schneeflock. "One is to shoot 3-D seismic; the other is to keep your costs very low. In this basin, we're taking the latter approach." Overall, Paramount has taken a high-tech approach to the Black Warrior, however. The firm has loaded data from all of the basin's wells onto workstations. "Everything-well logs, scout tickets and production data-is on the workstations, and we don't have to hunt for anything. It makes prospecting much more efficient." Paramount expects to drill six or seven wells this year, the pace it has maintained since it began working the basin three years ago. One recent success was its #1 Luckyday Foundation 21-2, a wildcat operated by fellow independent Roundtree & Associates Inc. That discovery, a mile and a half east of Trebloc Field in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, flowed 1.9 million cubic feet of gas per day from 31 feet of Carter sand. The prospect offers several additional development locations, and has the potential to drill out to be quite a large field for the area. At press time, the company was also ready to log another wildcat, in Lamar County, Alabama. "The shallow Black Warrior play is not something most of the big companies would want to do. These prospects are not company-makers, but the basin is a good, solid place to make money. We've had some good luck." Interest from a major Nonetheless, a big-company play-featuring multi-million-dollar wells capable of producing many millions of cubic feet of gas per day-is being developed on the Mississippi side by TotalFinaElf. The firm has been quite successful in establishing deep Cambro-Ordovician production in Oktibbeha County's Maben Field area. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, some 300 holes were drilled during the years in the Black Warrior Basin to test the Paleozoic carbonates. These sediments attracted interest because they are roughly equivalent to the Arkoma Basin's Arbuckle and the Permian's Ellenburger formations. Exploration prospects were mainly based on tests of fault blocks, anticlines and facies changes. Prior to TotalFinaElf's recent activity, just three minor one-well fields had been found, all productive from the Middle Ordovician Stones River Group. New Hope Field was discovered in Monroe County, Mississippi, in 1953; Maben Field was found in 1971; and Fairview Field was discovered in Lamar County, Alabama, in 1991. Of these, Maben was by far the deepest, producing from an interval between 14,690 and 15,036 feet. It was also the best producer, although it made less than a Bcf of gas in total. In 1998, Fina Oil & Chemical decided to test the Maben Field reservoir again, and its #1 Sanders found 50 feet of pay in Cambro-Ordovician. In 1999, the Sanders started producing into the pipeline at rates of more than 6 million cubic feet per day. The company now has six producing wells in the Maben area. Several wells are quite good, with the best one producing at initial rates of 10 million cubic feet per day. According to the Mississippi State Oil & Gas Board, Maben Field's cumulative production now stands at 18.3 Bcf. To date, TotalFinaElf has drilled five successful wells and one dry hole, all in 19n-12e. It is currently testing two wells and drilling another in the same township. It also drilled a minor producer at Maben South Field, in the northern part of 18n-12e. Additionally, the firm has staked a wildcat some 13.5 miles southeast of Maben Field, in an area with no prior deep drilling. The #1 Oktibbeha County Board of Education, in 17n-14e, is permitted to 17,000 feet. If this well is successful, it will greatly expand the play.