Jordan Blum, editorial director, Hart Energy: We are here at Hart Energy’s DUG Appalachia Conference in Pittsburgh. I'm joined by Jose Chirinos, the planning development manager for Repsol. You don't normally associate Repsol with Marcellus Shale, but you all have been here for about five years. Can I get you to talk about the current activity levels and learnings you've had?

Jose Chirinos, planning development manager, Repsol: So Repsol is active in the Northeast. We are located and operate in Susquehanna, Bradford and Tioga County and this year we have two rigs for most of the year and right now we are running one rig and we plan to run another rig for next year. So we are a stable operator. Our long-range plan right now is to show one stable rig for the next 10 years, so we're excited about the future here.

JB: Very good. Are y'all experimenting with anything in terms of different lateral lengths, completions, anything you can elaborate on?

JC: This year it's actually a record for us. Our average measure depth is close to 20,000 ft., which is really great. Our drilling team keeps pushing our technical limits. We try to optimize our well replacement and we try to minimize our impact to surface location and reuse existing pads. On the completion side, we are still experimenting with different water loadings, cluster spacing and cluster perforation orientations. So yeah, we're still learning, incorporating all those learnings into our development plan, making sure that we are able to predict our production and make sure that we keep good capital discipline and deliver results.

JB: Well, obviously you said capital discipline is key, but is this an area Repsol is looking to grow in as well, whether just through increased activity or M&A?

JC: So over the last two years with the two rigs we were able to really grow all the way and exceed our firm transportation capacity. And we believe that we're going to be able to keep our production through those transportation capacities. Repsol is committed to developing the asset and while we do that, the key for us is really to fund our development plan and then also provide some cashflow to the corporation. So as we progress, we are basically using our money to really develop the asset and then sending some money to the corporation.

JB: You all are also active in, let's see, Eagle Ford, Alaska and Gulf of Mexico. Is there anything else new you want to highlight activity wise?

JC: Yeah, in the Eagle Ford we are steady there also. We are drilling with one rig right now and we plan to keep that rig going. Alaska is taking off, we took FID and it's pretty exciting. It's a lot of moving parts in Alaska, but we are active and steady on these two assets.

JB: Thank you so much for joining us here at the DUG Appalachia Conference. To read and watch more, please visit online at hartenergy.com.

Comments