There is a bias in thinking that the application of unconventional technologies to move the needle in tight formation plays is all about the expertise of large public companies—the Devons, Pioneers, Apaches and Anadarkos of the world.

If technology is truly transformative, it should also benefit smaller companies with less scale than the public behemoths.

Prior to the oil price collapse, technological gains were approaching critical mass, as evidenced by rising well productivity. Now, greater awareness about the complexity of downhole conditions across laterals a mile or more in length, coupled with a growing understanding of completion effectiveness, promise future gains to the industry regardless of commodity price—and company size.

Oklahoma City-based Riley Exploration Group is leveraging technology to capture hydrocarbons left behind in legacy fields and establishing a beachhead in its own corner of the Eagle Ford’s northeast extension in Lee and Fayette counties, Texas. The private-equity-backed, family-owned E&P is concentrating efforts in Serbin Field south of Giddings, Texas, the unofficial capital of the storied Austin Chalk.

Riley and its JV partner, FieldPoint Petroleum Corp., target deltaic near-shore tight sands in the Cretaceous-aged Taylor Group at depths between 5,000 and 6,000 feet. The company pursues return on investment and seeks to leverage a conservative investment profile into a rate of return large enough to economically support further development efforts. Specifically, the company relies on the sophisticated application of rapidly evolving completions technology while strategically employing hedges to protect against commodity price gyration.

Riley employs a spectrum of modern technologies, including 3-D seismic, horizontal drilling and multistage fracturing, logging along the lateral length, and advances in coring to identify hydrocarbons that were left behind in one of the more intensively drilled areas of Texas. Austin Chalk territory is a pincushion of vertical wells. Many legacy verticals only drained 10 acres of a 40-acre spacing unit. Riley is pursuing bypassed hydrocarbons in the remaining 75% of those units.

In addition to Riley and FieldPoint, one other Austin-area oil and gas firm working the area is Venado Oil & Gas LLC, which is backed by both EnCap Investments LP and Riverstone Holdings LLC, and which targets the Eagle Ford Shale.

Riley is settling on lateral lengths between 6,000 and 8,000 feet strategically placed to intersect the most promising areas in the complex Taylor Sands Group, coupled with optimized completions combining slickwater and linear or cross-linked gels with multiple proppant sizes. The recipe calls for varying completion techniques along the wellbore to match changing geomechanical and reservoir characteristics.

While larger stage numbers are part of the informal definition of enhanced completions, Riley looks at placing stages in a tailored approach rather than the traditional method of fracture stimulating stages at recurring mathematic intervals.

The company also seeks to make every perforation cluster count. One of the less-publicized issues facing the industry is that many perforation clusters are ineffective and contribute to sub-optimal stage performance in the fracture-stimulation process.

“If you’re talking about a 50-stage well, and only 30 of those actually work, that means you have wasted 40% of your money,” said Mark Miles, Riley’s COO, during a visit with Oil and Gas Investor at February’s North American Prospect Expo in Houston. “All of these things are part of the enhanced completions that industry is working towards. It’s easy in good rock. Good rock, you can learn and you’re still profitable. In mediocre or bad rock, you better figure it out before you learn by losing money.”

The Taylor Group features an array of tight sandstones with varying hydrocarbon saturation. The shallower depth of the formation means wells can be drilled less expensively—at roughly half the cost of nearby Eagle Ford wells. Cracking the geologic code to reveal local structure and faulting provides access to trapped hydrocarbons that are as much as 80% crude oil.

Riley employs 3-D seismic and reservoir modeling and threads horizontal laterals to provide the greatest contact with zones most likely to produce bypassed hydrocarbons.

The current commodity price environment is characterized by falling acreage values and service costs. Both trends present opportunities to leverage technical expertise in areas formerly considered economically unattractive. It is a theme that applies to Central Texas, the Permian Basin, the Midcontinent and elsewhere, and highlights the operational agility of smaller operators.