Lower oil prices have even hurt the dry gas basins. The July 2015 commodity price drop also rankled activity levels in the traditional dry gas basins in the ArkLaTex, which encompass the Barnett, Fayetteville and Haynesville shales. Operators had just begun putting out feelers in mid-summer about adding incremental equipment to finish out 2015. With one exception, that nascent demand evaporated within weeks.

“We were pretty optimistic,” one top-tier ArkLaTex driller told Hart Energy. “Then oil prices dropped back, and it affected us. We dropped 30% of our rig population.”

Rig utilization regionwide fell to the low 40th percentile, and drilling contractors grew pessimistic about seeing positive change before 2016. Horizontal rig count briefly went to zero in the Fayetteville, while horizontal rig activity in the Barnett and Woodford can be counted for the most part on one hand in each play.

That said, there has been a slight revitalization in drilling and completion levels in the horizontal Cotton Valley play in East Texas and northern Louisiana. One stimulus for the rise in Cotton Valley activity surrounds the deployment of horizontal drilling in a stacked play, usually coupled with crosslink gel in the well stimulation process. The region also has witnessed a slight increase in vertical wells in East Texas, while the Barnett Shale has become the focus of refrack pilot studies, demonstrating that even the worst of markets present unexpected opportunities.

While the traditional dry gas basins were early movers to pad drilling, current pad activity features slightly fewer wells per pad—a drop from four on average previously to three in the most recent survey.

“We see smaller multiwell pads currently,” an operations manager at a mid-sized public independent told Hart Energy. “If the price recovers, we may go bigger and longer, but it is stable for now.”

Operators also are drilling laterals but postponing completion pending improvements in commodity pricing. Still, zipper fracks, which involve completing at least two horizontal laterals on a pad, account for two-thirds of completions, and that percentage has not changed materially other than that the total number of wells has decreased.

While slick water has long been a staple in East Texas—one can argue the technique originated in East Texas—the addition of greater proppant loading in traditional slickwater treatments is creating the same type of production boost in the Cotton Valley play in East Texas and northern Louisiana that has been chronicled in other areas around the nation. Survey respondents told Hart Energy that enhanced completions are employed in almost every new horizontal well in the region. Operators are using up to 250,000 lb of proppant per stage, which shakes out to roughly 5.7 million pounds per lateral in East Texas. Volumes in the Haynesville are about 50% higher.

Regional pressure pumping effective capacity is pegged at 450,000 in hydraulic horsepower. Large pressure-pumping firms are consolidating equipment into super-regional yards and servicing the ArkLaTex from outside the region. Survey respondents pegged the average price per stage at $61,000, which is higher than most other markets. The difference can be traced to greater use of crosslink gel in HP/HT situations that also entail more equipment on site.

Although well stimulation firms described the regional market as stabilized, it’s a different story for other service lines. Well service contractors note a continuing erosion in demand and pricing, which fell 25% to $312 per hour on average over the last six months for the benchmark 500 series workover unit. Routine maintenance accounts for 65% of the job mix regionally as operators only do what is absolutely necessary in the current low commodity price environment. One contractor reported reactivating his plugging-and-abandonment service line to pursue incremental revenue.

It’s going to be a long wait for 2016.

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