Comstock Extends Bcf-Gushing Western Haynesville to 45 Miles Wide

Comstock Resources' latest far western Haynesville Shale wildcat north of Houston has delineated the super-deep, super-hot, super-pressured play to 45 miles wide to date, according to a new well report.

As Comstock’s 19th well in its far stepout from the 18-year-old eastern Haynesville wildcatting, the Olajuwon Pickens #1H IP’ed 41 MMcf/d from a 10,306 ft lateral.

It adds a third county, Freestone, to the massive trend and is 24 miles from the next-nearest well test, Comstock told investors May 1.

Landed in Haynesville below the Bossier, the well went into sales on April 9. A completion report was not yet filed with the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC).

The play opener, Comstock’s Circle M #1H in Robertson County, has made 2.4 Bcf per 1,000 lateral feet to date in its first 35 months online through February—the latest month for which the RRC has reported.

The second oldest, Aethon Energy’s nearby Currie #2HB, has produced 2.7 Bcf per 1,000 lateral feet in its first 30 months through February, according to Hart Energy analysis.

Comstock has invested more than $1 billion to date in the Bossier and Haynesville formations that are at up to 19,000 ft deep and more than 425 degrees. That includes early wells that initially cost up to $30 million each to drill.

The wells have been “some of the hardest in the world” to drill, Jay Allison, Comstock chairman and CEO, told investors in on earnings call May 1.

But that’s wildcatting, he added: “We pushed the reset button on how to add inventory. We pursued exploration. That's what we did.”

It holds 520,000 net acres in the four-county southwest-to-northeast Bossier Trend that begins north of Houston and extends south of Dallas.

The leasehold may hold “thousands of future drilling locations” in the Bossier and Haynesville, Allison said.

“… We figured out how to drill and complete some of the deepest and highest-pressure horizontal shale wells in the world.”

The E&P, which is majority held by the Dallas Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones, has four rigs drilling the property, while three other rigs are making hole in its legacy Haynesville position along the Texas-Louisiana border.

Six more western Haynesville wells have been drilled—a total of 25 to date in the new play—but the Olajuwon well is the most recent one turned into sales, according to Dan Harrison, Comstock COO.

Days to drill in the play have declined since its first took nearly 100 to 37 days for a 12,045-ft lateral that is part of 27,417 ft of total hole, Harrison added.

The lateral portion cost $1,374 per foot, or about $17 million, excluding the frac job.

Allison said 2025 plans are to drill a total of 20 wells in the play and turn 15 to sales.

The next wells will focus on where Comstock wants to HBP some last acres, totaling about 70 wells, said President and CFO Roland Burns. “That will always be a big priority over anything else.”

‘Olajuwon shoots and scores’

The Olajuwon well is at the northeastern end of Comstock’s axis of tests that follow the East Texas Bossier Trend along U.S. Highway 79 for about 45 miles from just south of Easterly, Texas, in Robertson County to near Lanely in Freestone County.

The well is in the Dowdy Ranch-Cotton Valley Field, which since its 1999 discovery in Freestone County, has produced 493 Bcf from 256 vertical wells. A portion of the field is in Leon County and produced 2 Bcf there.

“Olajuwon shoots and scores,” UBS Securities analyst Peyton Dorne wrote. The well’s name references Houston Rockets basketballer Hakeem Olajuwon, who was part of the Rockets’ NBA championships in the mid-1990s.

Raymond James analyst John Freeman reported, “A slam dunk for western Haynesville delineation.”

Comstock picked up the name from two nearby vintage verticals—the Olajuwon A #1 and #2—named in 2004 by the property’s former owner, Anadarko Petroleum.

The vertical Olajuwon A #1 was drilled by Anadarko in 2004 and has produced 1.7 Bcf through February.

The vertical Olajuwon A #2 was drilled in 2008 and has produced 1.3 Bcf through February.

Both are now owned by Diversified Energy.

Harrison said Comstock drilled the horizontal test “in that area for a reason.”

“We had some nearby well logs that had drilled through that section years ago that we were able to look at and we could see the reservoir quality,” Allison said. “So we weren't drilling totally blind up there.

“We were initially looking to drill that to the Bossier.”

Comstock’s thinking was that the Bossier would be thicker. But Comstock decided to go about 1,000 ft deeper into the Haynesville.

“The rock quality was exemplary,” Allison said.

Since 1999

Anadarko discovered Dowdy Ranch CV Field in 1999. The RRC gave it a name in 2000, according to its files. In 2010, the commission amended it to include the entire interval from 11,150 ft to 14,500 ft as a single reservoir.

The 1999 success was in large part a result in East Texas operators’ change in the late to slickwater fracs, rather than gel, in the tight Cotton Valley that contributed to Mitchell Energy & Development’s economic breakthrough in the Barnett Shale in North Texas.

Total depth of the reference well (T-Bar-X/Roach Gas Unit Lease #2, API 42-161-31383) in the RRC order is 15,520 ft.

Cotton Valley sits at about 11,000 ft in the field, according to a 2011 Anadarko completions report. The underlying Bossier is at about 12,700 ft, according to another Anardarko report.

Anadarko had petitioned in 2010 for the field amendment, reporting, “Currently most production is from the Bossier sands within the Bossier shales.”

It added that, in the nearby Nana Su Gail Field at the time, Devon Energy “was encountering virgin pressures with their recently drilled horizontal wells completed between existing vertical wells.”

Additionally, “the sands in the productive zones are discontinuous and lenticular. Some of the wells had initial potential flow rate as high as 10,000 to 20,000 Mcf/d.”

At the time, Anadarko was planning a horizontal test in the Cotton Valley Lime. “In the second phase, Anadarko will drill stacked laterals in the Bossier sands then finally into productive sections of the Upper Cotton Valley,” it reported.

The idea was that “the stacked-lateral rules will allow operators to target the three zones within the 3,300-foot interval.”

Diversified, Comstock deal

Nearly all of the Dowdy Ranch CV Field’s current production is from Diversified Production LLC, which entered it in February 2022 through an acquisition from Legacy Reserves Operating. Diversified Production is a subsidiary of Diversified Energy.

In the 36 months since purchasing the property, Diversified has produced 16 Bcf.

Legacy Reserves had already produced 61 Bcf from it since picking up the leasehold from Anadarko in 2015. Anadarko had already produced 406 Bcf from the property.

Comstock's Olajuwon well is only Dowdy Ranch CV Field’s fifth horizontal. Three were made by Anadarko in 2004; one, in 2011.

In the Olajawon permit request, Comstock stated, “Existing vertical wells in each unit are operated by Diversified Production LLC on a wellbore-only assignment. Comstock controls the development of the Haynesville Shale rights in all three units.”

Bald Prairie Cotton Valley Field in Robertson County and Dowdy Ranch CV in Freestone are among many prolific gas producers in the four-county Freestone Trend play in Freestone, Limestone, Robertson and Leon counties.