The Louisiana Eagle Ford shale is an emerging play to say the least—only two new horizontal wells have been drilled since oil shows were last seen in old vertical wells drilled in the 1960s, according to Keith Jordan, president and chief operating officer of Indigo Minerals II LLC. The private company owns 255,000 net acres in the nascent play. But companies such as Devon Energy Corp. and Encana are drilling verticals or preparing to drill horizontally in the area—and in the nearby Tuscaloosa marine shale (TMS).

"I'm here to tell you, the Eagle Ford definitely crosses the state line into Louisiana," Jordan said. He outlined the Louisiana Eagle Ford's potential at Hart Energy's second annual DUG Eagle Ford Conference & Exhibition in San Antonio on October 12.

This part of the play takes up about 100 miles in central Louisiana, between the Sabine Uplift at the Texas border and the TMS. The Louisiana Eagle Ford sources the overlying, naturally fractured Austin Chalk formation, which also begins in central Texas and runs through western Louisiana, east of the Sabine Uplift.

"We think we have a 100-mile stretch here in Louisiana of organic-rich shale…but you see an influx of clays as you get to the far eastern part of the play," Jordan said. "We know the section is about 500 feet thick, but it thins to the west, and the further you go east, it starts to transition to the Tuscaloosa marine shale."

Jordan said more paleo research is needed to correlate between the Louisiana Eagle Ford and the Tuscaloosa marine shale.

Indigo drilled its first well, the Bentley Lumber #32-1, vertically. "We have plenty of total organic content; we have plenty of resistivity and we have producible oil." It took 300 feet of core. The company started studying old vertical well cores in the region in 2008, soon after the Texas Eagle Ford play was unveiled.

The company followed that with its first horizontal well, Bentley 34H-1, which was drilled with a 4,100-foot lateral leg. It drilled through 520 feet of Eagle Ford interval and will fracture the well in mid-November with 15 stages. Jordan said the well found "tremendous gas all the way to the toe of the well. We had to circulate mud for 16 hours…."

He said experts believe the oil in the play is 45- to 50-degree API gravity, with 1,450 Btu content and lots of natural gas liquids. "It's a very good hydrocarbon system. We've tested the zone in a vertical well north of the shelf edge. We have about 300 feet of core from that first exploratory well. We do have a brittle, fracable rock and low clay content."

Jordan said it is way too early to discuss a type curve, but the area is definitely overpressured. Based on data to date from old vertical wells, and using an Eagle Ford analogy, "I took a stab at it. I estimate an IP of 640 barrels a day and an EUR of 430,000 BOE."

Indigo II was formed in January 2011. It holds working interests and/or mineral interests in 225,000 net Louisiana Austin Chalk acres, as well as in the North Dakota Bakken and Alabama Smackover, in addition to the Louisiana Eagle Ford.

Because the play is so new, Jordan and others are watching closely what all the operators do in central Louisiana. "We are certainly rooting for the other players to the east like Devon Energy; and Houston Energy is going to drill a test on our western flank."

For a small company, Indigo has a lot of acreage leased so Jordan said he would entertain a joint venture partner on the company's 255,000 net acres. Some 200,000 of those are situated on just 11 leases. Some 165,000 acres are controlled by only two surface owners—and one of those is on Indigo's board of directors, so it's a very friendly environment in which to drill, he said.

Contact the author, Leslie Haines, at lhaines@hartenergy.com.