Chesapeake Energy Corp., Oklahoma City, reports it is now producing some 200 million cubic feet equivalent per day from the Barnett shale in the Fort Worth Basin where it has 28 operated rigs at work and 200,000 net acres, of which 160,000 are in the Tier 1 area of Tarrant, Johnson and western Dallas counties.

Chesapeake is the No. 4 producer in the shale play. It expects that, by midyear, it will be using 30 to 35 operated rigs in the play and to be completing, on average, one new Barnett well per day. Its proved developed reserves in the shale are some 598 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe); proved undeveloped, 711 Bcfe.

Chairman and chief executive Aubrey McClendon said at the IPAA's annual Oil & Gas Investment Symposium in New York that, in the Barnett play alone, the company could drill 400 wells a year.

"We think our (companywide) organic growth this year will be the highest it's been in three years," he said. "Looking back on our results, if we had IPO'd only the gains we've made from drilling (not acquisitions) over the last five years, we would have built one of the top 15 natural gas producers in the U.S. just from the drillbit."

Production gains from the drillbit contributed the most to growth at Quicksilver Resources during the past four years, chief executive Glenn Darden said at the symposium.

The company began 2003 with only 2 Bcfe of proved reserves in the Barnett play; by year-end 2006, that had risen to 704 Bcfe. Its Barnett production is now 55 million cubic feet a day-more than triple that of 2005.

"We feel we have to be in resource plays to remain one of the lowest-cost producers," Darden said. "We showed the same type of growth in the Michigan Antrim shale and in Canadian coalbed methane a few years ago, and now we're applying our expertise to the Barnett."

Quicksilver intends to form a midstream master limited partnership (MLP) this year for its Barnett-related assets, including its new Cowtown gas-liquids plant, which processes 65 million cubic feet a day. "We think this will showcase the value we have and it will also allow us to delever the company," Darden said.

Quicksilver may have as many as 3,000 Barnett locations if 50-acre spacing is maintained. At its current rate of drilling 170 Barnett wells annually, "we have a lot to say grace over," he said.