Number of oil and gas leases in Brewster County on the rise
By MEGAN WILDE / The Big Bend Sentinel (4/16/08)
FAR WEST TEXAS – With the Brewster County Groundwater Conservation District considering a request to sell water to an oil exploration company, many locals have speculated the booming oil and gas fields in Pecos, Reeves and neighboring counties will soon extend here. And while few oil and gas companies are drilling in the area now, increased leasing activity in Brewster County indicates that could change in coming years.
Mark Henkhaus, district director at the Railroad Commission’s Midland office, says he doesn’t see much exploration activity in the tri-county area based on drilling permits filed with his agency. By filing a drilling permit, a company indicates they intend to drill a gas or oil well at a lease, and the permits remain active for several years, he explained.
Over the past five years, only 17 drilling permits have been filed for oil and gas wells in Brewster, Jeff Davis and Presidio counties, and only a handful of those were filed within the last year, according to Railroad Commission data online.
“That tells me there’s not a lot of interest at this time,” Henkhaus said. “What’s going to happen in the future who knows.”
For comparison, more than 1,400 drilling permits have been filed in Pecos County, 325 in Reeves County, and 234 in Terrell County since January 2005. Henkhaus said there’s also increasing interest in Culberson and Hudspeth counties, where gas companies are looking for a formation analogous to the productive shale under Fort Worth.
Locally, only a handful of companies have shown interest in drilling in recent years. All five of the active drilling permits for gas exploration in Brewster County belong to Ascent Operating of Plano. Giant Petroleum of Irving has filed three drilling permits in Presidio County, and Chesapeake Operating of Oklahoma City and Quicksilver Resources of Fort Worth have shown interest in Jeff Davis County.
While there aren’t many drilling permits in the area, there has been a significant increase in the number of oil and gas leases being filed at the Brewster County Clerk’s office. Twenty-three leases have been filed so far this year, and 90 were filed last year. Back in 2006, only 30 were filed, up from 14 in 2005 and none in 2003 and 2004. Chesapeake Exploration, Encana Oil and Gas, Sandridge Energy, Shorthorn Resources, and J Mark Smith and Associates have filed the majority of those leases in the last few years.
Brewster County Judge Val Beard says leases usually give a producer two to five years to come in and drill, so the recent activity could mean more exploration here in the future.
“In Pecos County the activity is intense between Marathon and Fort Stockton. A good part of that activity is fairly close to the Brewster County line, and there is a lot of leasing activity in that part of the world in Brewster County,” Beard said. “It is moving in our direction definitely.”