Never Give Up - Can Higher Crude Oil Prices Revive the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale Play?

With the crude to natural gas price ratio (crude in $/Bbl divided by gas in $/MMbtu) continuing in historically high territory many energy companies are looking for more opportunities to shift from producing cheap gas to producing premium-price oil. For that reason, one tight-oil play long in the background—the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) in central Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi—is attracting new attention; particularly from drillers who think they’ve figured out how to deal with TMS’s challenging characteristics. But is TMS all its fracked up to be? Today we begin a new series on TMS with a primer on this 6.6 million-acre shale play that’s said to have seven billion barrels of oil in place deep below ground but only a stone’s throw from the pipeline networks and refineries of the Gulf Coast.

Producer pioneers in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) are finally figuring out how best to wring large volumes of Light Louisiana Crude from the oil-rich play’s notoriously complex geology. But are they “cracking the code” at just the wrong time, when crude prices are crashing and investors are shifting their focus to shale-play sweet spots with low drilling costs? Some say no; that fine-tuned completion formulas, declining drilling costs and a favorable tax environment make the TMS a “go”, even in these tough times. But others say yes; that it’s time to move on from the TMS, at least for now. Today we revisit the still-promising TMS in central Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi, and assesses whether the play many consider to be the next big thing needs to wait for higher oil prices to shine.

The potential for the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) tight-oil play to become the next big thing in U.S. oil production is attracting exploration and production companies willing to put some money at risk in the hope of big payoffs. The TMS seems to have a lot going for it. The play in central Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi is said to have seven billion barrels of oil in place deep below ground but only a stone’s throw from the pipeline networks, terminals and refineries of the Gulf Coast. But succeeding in TMS requires overcoming the play’s challenging characteristics through nuanced drilling techniques and completion formulas. Today in the second part of our series on TMS we examine what the E&P pioneers have accomplished so far in drilling and production, what they’re learning from their experience, and what it would take to turn TMS’s potential into reality.