In a document filed in Anderson County this morning, Drake assigned 34 Anderson County leases to Chesapeake Exploration, LLC (subsidiary of Expand), confirming prior speculation that Drake is leasing for Expand. I expect to see similar documents filed in Houston and Leon Counties.
Will be interesting to see if this indicates that a well may be permitted soon.
There is a good chance that Expand or Chesapeake Exploration, LLC may not just be targeting the Western Haynesville type play in parts of Houston County. As of yet in Andersen, Leon or Houston County they have not permitted or drilled a Western Bossier/Haynesville type horizontal deep well. The Yancy well west of Grapeland in Houston County is a vertical well, not a horizontal.
The Yancey well was a test well designed to collect data for future horizontal drilling.
Some side notes on CHK and this area (Western HV/Bossier trend).
CHK knows this area - they drilled several deep (18,000-20,000’) vertical wells 10-15 years chasing the same deep, hot, over pressured section and targeting the Bossier SS section.
Horizontal drilling practices and related expertise (and excellence) is not foreign to CHK (or Expand Energy).
I just read an article in the July 2025 American Oil & Gas Reporter that talks about Expand setting a US record for lateral length (27,657’) in the Appalachian Basin.
They also own US records for longest US land well (34,507’) and single longest bit / BHA run (30,368’).
Plus world record for max footage drilled in 48-hour period (21,314’).
I don’t see anything in the Western HV/Bossier that would prevent CHK / Expand from being able to drill deep laterals and join this high-rate gas play.
Remember, Comstock, Aethon and Mitsui had zero experience in drilling and completing Hz wellbores in the high pressure, hot and deep conditions seen in this trend - and they are doing fine so far as they tweak and adjust their best practices to optimize returns.
The Deep Bossier Play in Houston County goes all the way back to the early 1980’s. Anadarko, Westland were big players back then. They could not drill horizontal at the 20,000 depths then. But the old area’s now could be drilled horizontal with a lot better results most likely.