New players in the burgeoning Barnett Shale play in North Texas continue to form-some rank start-ups and some of them business units of established E&P companies. "There are always new groups coming in," says Ray Ledesma, president of Lago Vista, Texas-based Star of Texas Energy Services. "Ultimately there will be a handful of big players in the area but that is a ways off." The company, which was founded in 1997 to explore the Texas Gulf Coast and deep South Texas, has been focused on the Barnett Shale's unconventional gas reserves since 2001. It has drilled or participated in more than 60 Barnett wells since then, 39 of which were vertical. "We're increasing our position in Bosque and western Parker counties," Ledesma says. The company sold a group of wells to EnCana Oil & Gas USA earlier this year in Denton and northern Tarrant counties. It currently has more than 55 wells in Denton, Wise and Tarrant counties. Star of Texas ranked No. 12 in top Barnett Shale producers in 2004, according to Texas state statistics. The company produced 1.9 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of gas during the year from its Barnett wells. The other top producers in 2004 were Devon Energy Corp. (204.8 Bcf), Chief Oil & Gas (33.4), Burlington Resources (22.6), Antero Resources (23.7), EnCana (8.1), XTO Energy Inc. (6.7), Hallwood Energy (3.1), J-W Operating Co. (4.0), Four Sevens Operating (2.6), Ryder Scott Oil Co. (2.1) and Republic Energy (1.2). Since year-end 2004, at least two of the producers have been bought out: Antero Resources by XTO Energy, and some of the Hallwood Energy assets by Chesapeake Energy Corp. The prominence of the Barnett Shale's gas output is shown in other Texas statistics: the play was the No. 1 gas producer in the state in 2004 (a total of 371 Bcf of output), and the No. 1 gas producer in Texas in 2004 was Devon Energy, which brought up 337.2 Bcf, of which 204.8 Bcf came from the Barnett alone.