The " Shale Gale" sweeping across of the US really started in the Haynesville Shale (HS) of North Louisiana and East Texas. There have been 2444 Haynesville wells drilled to date and 2221 are producing at this time by Louisiana department of Natural Resources (LADNR), 2013 (Fig.1). With the highest initial production rates (up to 30 Mcf/d) of any play and rapid accumulation of gas production in the HS wells made the play the richest to date. In figure 2 below, the average IP for Woodardville Field was 21 MMCFD (Endeavor, 2011).
Leasing rates also soared with the largest per acre price of $20, 100 paid in Caddo Parish. Within two years the HS daily production soared to over 7 billion cubic feet (BCF)/day. The discovery of the Haynesville radically changed to total yearly production of Louisiana (Figure 3) and at one point was the highest producing gas field in the U.S. (Kaiser, 2011)
As natural gas prices continued to decline, many rigs left the Haynesville and moved to the more liquids-rich plays like the Eagle Ford in South Texas. Oil and condensate product prices were staying high and the Haynesville is a completely dry gas. Maybe the largest movement of rigs in such a short period of time U.S. history occurred. Haynesville rig levels dropped from a high of about 184 to 23 rigs (Texas and Louisiana). By November 2011 production also started to decline as shown in Fig. 4 (USEIA, 2012).
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