article by Darren Barbee, Hart Energy
Oklahoma is something of a sleeper in shale oil and gas world.
The vaunted oil and gas plays of Texas and North Dakota cast long shadows—long enough sometimes to obscure entire states. Yet Oklahoma’s varied mix of oil and natural gas is impressive.
Oklahoma is one of the top five oil-producing states, and three of the nation’s largest oil fields are found there. The state also produced more natural gas than the output of Louisiana, Wyoming or New Mexico from July 2014 to July 2015, according to Barclays Capital Inc. statistics.
In September, oil and gas consulting services Rystad Energy added complete data for all horizontal shale wells in Oklahoma into its shale well database (NASWellData). The data show that Oklahoma’s volume of U.S. shale light oil output has consistently improved during the past several years.
That’s partly shown by continued deal activity in Oklahoma. FourPoint Energy LLC paid $840 million for Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s (NYSE: CHK) interests in the Anadarko Basin, the fifth-largest E&P transaction in 2015. FourPoint purchased interests in about 1,500 producing wells and more than a quarter-million acres.