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Despite generally weak natural gas prices that have greatly discouraged drilling in the past year, Fort Worth-based Quicksilver Resources is forecasting double-digit production growth for 2010 on top of double-digit gains this year.
The company’s Barnett Shale operations "continue to perform very well, keeping us on track to achieve record volumes this year," CEO Glenn Darden said in a statement Monday.The company, benefiting from production gains from horizontal wells drilled in the Alliance and Lake Arlington areas, said it remains on pace for a daily production average equivalent to 325 million cubic feet of natural gas for 2009. That would be a record high for the company and up more than 24 percent from 2008. Current production is 340 million cubic feet daily.Darden said lower costs for oil field services and higher prices for natural gas liquids produced in the southern part of the Barnett "have significantly enhanced our opportunities to begin accelerating completion activities in the southern part of the basin," which includes Hood, Somervell and other counties. Completion, which includes hydraulic fracturing, which helps release much higher volumes of natural gas from dense rock formations, is done after the well is drilled.The company now expects to increase average daily production at least 20 percent in 2010 over the projected 2009 level, Darden said.Quicksilver, like many other companies, has delayed completing some wells until natural gas prices rebound more strongly. In futures trading Monday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, gas fell 21.1 cents to $4.32 per million British thermal units in contracts for December delivery. That’s up from this year’s low of less than $2.50 but far below peak prices of more than $13 in July 2008.Quicksilver said it has 48 wells in the southern portion of the Barnett that have been drilled but not completed. In the Lake Arlington area, it has deferred completion on 36 wells. Once they are completed, the stage will be set for future production increases.Quicksilver’s current daily net production is 71 million cubic feet from the Alliance area, 34 million from the Lake Arlington area and 160 million from the southern portion of the shale, where the production of natural gas liquids along with gas is enabling the company to achieve a strong price of about $8.25 per 1,000 cubic feet of production.JACK Z. SMITH, 817-390-7724
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