I was informed today by a reliable source that the County Clerk offices in Anderson and Cherokee Counties have been told to get ready for a large leasing project. No time frame was provided.
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Hi Alan, I wonder what is going on with that 3 well 8.8 acre pad you said Comstock just permitted several months ago over by Oakwood? That’s not too far from the river and Anderson County.
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Thanks for the information as always Alan. There is already a very well organized lease play breaking out east of Alto. One lease covered almost 5,000 acres and they are quickly acquiring bolt-on acreage. Lease prices are low and the form is a bit onerous.
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I’ve only seen one recent lease in that area, but it must be the large lease you were referring to. Perhaps other leases have been written but not recorded yet.
4,917.43 acres
Grantee: Gleason Operating (mailing address in Denver, Colorado)
Gleason appears to be associated with Stockyards Energy Land Services (Ft Worth). Stockyards has recorded recent leases in Nolan County in West Texas.
Do you know anything else about this leasing project?
All Comstock has done is acquire the surface area required for the pad. We won’t know anything else until they file a drilling permit request.
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I was sent an offer to buy my minerals in Anderson co. DSD. July, 2026. Is anyone else getting recent offers in Anderson County? Does anyone have info. on 16b$ gas hub being built in 2028 in Anderson County?
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Molly,
DSD has contacted me with offer to buy my minerals in 5 abstracts. 1) abstract has been producing since 2012, 1) abstract is under lease but not yet drilled, 3) are not under lease.
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I would imagine this leasing project is just Expand continuing their leasing throughout the area.
This play just has a different feel. Because of the expense involved in the drilling of the wells it is going to be what can be developed without severe land complexity. Big tracts will be at premium such as what is happening in Cherokee. The second tier is where is there a market for the gas. No company is going to drill a 25 million dollar well unless they have a long term plan in place for gas marketing. Because of the economics of the wells the companies are going to fight very hard on lease royalties which is what we are seeing already.
The Cherokee play has a strange feel. There is a plan in place. The title was done and a high volume of leases went out at one time.
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More than likely this maybe HBP acreage already.
DSD contacted me about a year ago to purchase my NMA just a little east of the river, north of 294. They were unprepared as was I. With some help we figured out our ownership which isn’t much, and the location. They kept wanting me to do their legwork for them, providing documents, who is this? who is that? When we finally got close enough to sign papers it was “well, we need just one more thing” so I asked them to return my paperwork and call me when they had their act together and then we could renegotiate at a higher price. Since then…crickets. My interest is small, ~11 NMA.
We have also been contacted over the months by DSD on multiple tracts throughout the area. With that being said, the letter and phone calls have definitely increased 2-3x over the last couple months.
Now there is a lease play breaking out in the west portion of Cherokee, very close to the Anderson County line, There is a different Lessee, but the lease form and the land crew handling the lease acquisition is the same as the activity east of Alto/Rusk close to the Nacogdoches County line. Horrible lease form and very low terms. Because of the limited number of players involved in the play there is not any competition. The only way to get terms to an acceptable level is for enough people to reject these offers. That is hard to do since there has been so little leasing activity in the area for 20-30 years.
Of some note is there was a recompletion filed in June for the Vallier-Sessions well owned by Maximus in Cherokee County. This well has been dicussed extensively in this forum. The permit is for them to go horizontal (rumored to be in the Bossier).
The Maximus recompletion permit shows Haynesville as the target formation. However, Maximus has not brought in a rig and it has been almost two months since the permit was approved.
Yes. I am guessing a very quick lease acqusition prospect for big leases in the area before bringing in the rig is not just a coincidence. It is probaby my overactive imagination, but this sure seems to have a lot of parallels with what happened on the Yancey well in Houston County. Same drilling process, similar lease form, acquisition of leases at substandard rates …
A friend in the business said this is most likely all tied to Caturus leasing in the area. He mentioned that they are a Kimmeridge tied company, for whatever that is worth.
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I may have posted this before, but here is the info on that Maximus vertical well that has been now permitted for a re-entry / Hz well option.
Drilled in late 2022 - TD of 13,575’ / about 140’ into the Cotton Valley Lime (Top @ 13,433’). Logs not available, but top Bossier Section @ 12.348’.
So only 1085’ of total Bossier and Haynesville (if present) section. Much thinner than the equivalent stratigraphic section in the Western HV/ Bossier Fairway.
Intermediate casing only set to 4800’ (10.75" casing) and well was plugged back up into this basing with the plugs set in the open hole section.
Although logs are not available, SBL log header is available with the L-1 filing. Only 285 Degree F @ well TD and only needed 10.8# MW at TD.
These two parameters point to a very different Bossier / Haynesville section than that seen in the Western Fairway - with is much hotter in this interval as well as highly overpressured.
Drilling Hz Bossier / Haynesville wells (plus frac’ing horizontals) has not been something that Maximus has done in their history. This looks like Maximus acting as the operator for the vertical well in a “stealth” operation to obtain log, samples, science info to help the well “sponsor” decide if this is an area to pursue with Hz drilling - plus select the optimum target zone for a Hz well.
Expand (CHK) has done this at the Yancey and Lavinski areas in NW Houston and SW Anderson Counties, respectively. Very much their MO (i.e. vertical science wells) plus stealth operations (the drilled their Houston County well under the auspices of Augusta Energy).
Other operators (e.g. EO) have gone the stealth operator group for various reasons - not that hard to do.
It will be interesting to see when and if a rig is mobilized into this area to drill a Hz well.
I would look at this area being more like the traditional Sabine Uplift / NE Texas Bossier / Haynesville section than the Western Fairway area.
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Thats some solid info Rockman. Thanks to you and Alan for what you do to bring clarity to the situation.
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Bull Run/EOG recently leased 2,000 plus net mineral acres in Madison County next to the Trinity River on Texas Hwy 21.