Onshore wildcatting is on the rise, a wonderful aspect of the current boom. Some of these tests are long-cherished prospects: perhaps they were originally generated just before a price collapse, or their owners went out of business, or their leases were tied up in regulatory limbo. Whatever, their time has finally come.

One such prospect is Christmas Meadows in Summit County, Utah. It lies about 30 miles south of Evanston, Wyoming, in a tectonically complex region where great thrust sheets from the Wyoming Overthrust meet the northern flank of the Uinta Mountains.

"Christmas Meadows prospect is an anticline that appears to be hidden under the mountain front," says Stephen Hollis, president of Double Eagle Petroleum Co., project operator. "Volumetric calculations on Christmas Meadows indicate that it has the potential to contain as much as 3 trillion cubic feet of gas."

The small Casper, Wyoming-based firm acquired its first interest in the project in 1984. Major oil companies had been well aware of Christmas Meadows years prior to that, however. In the 1970s, Gulf Oil identified the apparent structural closure beneath the North Flank thrust on regional 2-D seismic data.

During the heyday of Overthrust drilling in the late 1970s and early 1980s, companies such as Amoco, Chevron, American Quasar and Sohio combed through the region looking for just such features. Their work confirmed the existence of the subthrust structural target.

The prospect geometry is reminiscent of Madden Field, an immense sour-gas field in Wyoming's Wind River Basin that was developed on a deep anticline immediately in front of the Owl Creek Thrust. Double Eagle has interests in the Madden area, so it was quite familiar with that geology.

Amoco staked a 19,000-foot location to test the Christmas Meadows prospect in 1982, but it was not issued a drilling permit. The leases are federal, in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest, and the drillsite lies a few miles outside the High Uinta Mountain Wilderness Area.

In 1986, Amoco dropped the idea. It was next picked up by Chevron, which formed a federal unit and staked a location in 1989. A drilling permit was not forthcoming for this major either, and it ceased its efforts in 1994.

Double Eagle was not ready to give up, however.

It purchased the Chevron leases and arranged farm-outs with other parties. Double Eagle completed an update of the environmental impact statement and received a federal drilling permit, but open acreage on the crest of the feature forced another delay.

In November 2003, Double Eagle and its partners purchased the key remaining leases at a Bureau of Land Management auction. "Just getting those leases put up for bid took quite an effort," says Hollis.

Today, the company owns a quarter-interest in 41,237 acres at Christmas Meadows. When the first well is completed, Double Eagle's partners, who have paid their share in the first well, will earn respective shares in the acreage block. Basic Earth Science Systems Inc., Denver, is participating with a 2% interest. Double Eagle will have 30% after payout.

Last year, it finished road work and set conductor pipe. Unit Drilling, which holds a back-in on the well, came through with a rig suitable to the work at the drillsite's 9,600-foot elevation. Rig #233 is now at work on #1 Table Top Unit, in Table Top Federal Unit, Section 16-1n-10e. Projected depth is 15,730 feet. It's a 100-day, $10-million well, not including $2.5 million already spent on preparatory work.

"We're going to test the Frontier and Dakota, and then we will have velocities from the rock packages to reprocess our seismic data," says Hollis. After the company refines its subsurface picture and nails down the crest of the feature, it will drill a well to the deeper Nugget and Madison zones. Double Eagle has already staked an offset in Section 17.

Closest production to the wildcat is 18 miles northwest at Pineview Field, in the Wyoming Overthrust. The nearest Frontier and Dakota production lies in Bridger Lake Field, on the south end of the Moxa Arch.

Owners in this exciting prospect have been patient. "Some of our stockholders have been with us since the early 1980s, and they have been waiting many years for this well," says Hollis.

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