Friday, December 19, 2008

Atlas Energy..........Titan of the Marcellus

Atlas Energy Resources this morning announced the completion of yet another record breaking vertical in the Marcellus Shale. The well produced 5.0 mmcf in its first 24 hours inline and in the last 25 days has produced over 81 mmcf. Atlas utilized the same two stage frac that has proven so effective on its last six verticals. The first five wells where the technique had been used averaged initial production of 2.1 mmcfd. The average of the last seven now stands at 2.5 mmcfd.

Rich Weber, President and Chief Operating Officer, commented that the results are indicative "not only the effectiveness of our completion designs, but also the quality of our acreage."

Even though this last completion is showing greater recovery efficiency than any Marcellus horizontal on record, Weber is hopeful that the frac design will still yield outsized results when applied to horizontals. He noted, "The potential of horizontal wells having frac designs with up to eight stages is very exciting given the exceptional results from our two stage verticals."

Press Release