Thrace DBGA v Anadarko Granite WashFirstly, I am not in any way giving advice in any of my posts and I am not in any way an expert in any of this, only an interested investor. This is only my opinion and just for the general interest of others who, might be interested. :)
On page 15 of the November 15, 2018 "Site Visit 2018" presentation found on the VLE website they do a comparison of the Thrace Basin BCGA to the Anadarko Granite Wash.
I believe this is common practice in the energy Industry, to find a successful analog to the porspect you are proposing to exploit and if the calculations work, proceed with exploration, verify comerciality and exploit.
There are many similarities and a few important differences. The most concerning to me, and I have to admit it caught my eye in the early days and $4 and $5/share prices was the permiability.
In the VLE presentation they stated porosity in the Thrace was 3-9% and Granite Wash 2 - 14 (Avg 6) Pretty close. :)
In the same chart however they quoted the permiability in the Thrace to be 0.001 to 0.02 and the Granite Wash to be 0.0001 - 0.1 The best in the Granite Wash being 5X better than Thrace and the worst in the Granite Wash being 10X worse than in the Thrace. It's close, but permiability is about how the holes are interconnected and you need that to get the gas out.
Look at the graph yourself, but the pressure is about 25% better in the Thrace.
So with a bit of research I found the article by Yunan Wei and John Xu entitled Granite Wash-A Liquid-rich Tight Gas Sand Play. An interesting read to be sure. Here is the link:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301779537_Chapter_16_Granite_Wash_Tight_Gas_Reservoir
A few tak away point were:
1.) With 4500 ft horizontal legs and 30 fracs the IP rate was between 2 and 27 MMfcf/d.
2.) Horizontal wells could produce 20X that of a verticle well.
3.) Average IP was 6.5 MMcf/d
There is a lot more in the article, but with the lower permiability it seems to me you are going to have to have fewer liquids (Condensate or water) and higher pressure.
As Sean is proposing to go deeper, you should have more pressure, potentially much more and if we are in zone that is not liquid rich or the liquids are gas at that depth with the inherant increase of temperature and pressure at that depth, it might just work.
It seems to me that if we get a straw into it and we find good or great production the field will likely be smaller. My guess is that this is why Equinor (Statoil) pulled out. With the decreased size of the play it was no longer big enough for them. They are a super major.
But, it still may be a huge for a midsized O&G company which there are many many more than super majors.
Time will tell, but the numbers are still to me, somewhat compelling.
All in my humble opinion,
Doc.