A strange thing happened in the Haynesville Shale recently.

Australia’s BHP Billiton Ltd., with a market cap of nearly $93 billion, and rebounding U.S. E&P Goodrich Petroleum Corp.—market cap $110 million—found themselves separately staking part of their future on the resurgent play.

Management at BHP, the world’s largest mining company, has lately expressed regret—in speeches and presentations—that entering the U.S. shale scene at a high-point in 2011 and acquiring $20 billion worth of assets may have been ill-conceived. Jac Nasser, the company’s chairman, recently made similar remarks.

The double dose of mea culpa comes following pressure on BHP to cut ties with its petroleum business, including its Eagle Ford Shale and Permian Basin oil business. Hedge fund firm Elliott Associates and Elliott International LP, which owns about 4% of BHP, said the company’s “chronic underperformance” could be salvaged by demerging BHP’s petroleum business, splitting off about $15 billion in assets.

Management and activist investor dustups can get ugly. Chesapeake Energy Corp. tangled with Carl Icahn and the result was CEO Aubrey McClendon heading for the door. Nasser himself is retiring from BHP effective Sept. 1.

Still, BHP isn’t backing down—or backing up—its oil and gas business. The company holds to the premise that its assets will still prove valuable. In part, the company said it will optimize its petroleum business through “operating excellence.” Elliott points out that BHP doesn’t actually operate the “vast majority” of its assets.

Cenovus Energy Inc. feels BHP’s pain. Cenovus recently shelled out $13.3 billion for ConocoPhillips Co.’s Canadian oil-sands assets. On June 20, the company said it would replace CEO Brian Ferguson, who led the unpopular charge to buy the assets.

“A change in management would probably provide a bigger boost to the share price than any positive surprise in terms of asset sale,” Len Racioppo, managing director of Toronto-based Coerente Capital Management, told Reuters.

Whether ousters at Cenovus or BHP would be meaningful seems a bit like guesswork. The larger question is what definitive action BHP has in mind.

BHP’s game plan is a somewhat lackluster, don’t-rock-the-boat approach: swap acreage for longer Permian Basin laterals; sell off assets that are “worth more to others” than to BHP; and hedge natural gas to hasten the Haynesville Shale’s development. Slow and steady is good for such large companies, but perhaps not good enough when under the microscope.

Goodrich Petroleum Corp. has, of course, been down its own path—one that also led it to the Haynesville. Since exiting bankruptcy in October 2016, the company has focused on what it’s good at, and what is its most valuable commodity.

It recently added 2,200 net acres in DeSoto Parish, La., in the increasingly competitive Haynesville.

So far, acquisitions and swaps have added to the company’s operated, long-lateral inventory, Robert Turnham, Goodrich president and COO, told Oil and Gas Investor. But, its A&D strategy isn’t necessarily tied to longer laterals,

“Our number one priority is to acquire acreage within the core of the play regardless of potential horizontal lateral lengths over the acreage,” Turnham said. “We feel we will be able to drill joint wells with offset operators if necessary.”

Goodrich is climbing back from a rough stretch in the downturn, as oil prices left the company unable to make the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) and debt management viable. The company pulled every lever it had, including selling part of its Eagle Ford Shale holdings in 2015 for $110 million and restructuring debt, but Turnham never considered selling the Haynesville.

In the TMS, the company had oil reserves. The Haynesville gave it exposure to gas.

“We felt then, as now, that it was important to maintain some commodity diversification,” Turnham said.

As it entered bankruptcy in 2016, the company said it would direct future capex toward the Haynesville.

In the past 15 months or so, new completion techniques have made the play even more compelling.

Turnham claims no prescience of the recent Haynesville upswing. Keeping the position was simply a way of maintaining a way to toggle its capex, as needed, to the best rate of return based on commodity prices.

For the months ahead, Goodrich still has option value in the TMS—with about 128,000 net acres—and the Eagle Ford, with 14,100 net acres.

The company will wait for oil prices to rise—perhaps to $65—and for people to rediscover that TMS wells are capable of average EURs of 800,000 barrels of oil equivalent—with just 2,200 pounds of proppant per foot.

“We are pumping 4,000 to 5,000 pounds per foot in the Haynesville and seeing our reserves increase by up to three times our old well designs,” Turnham said. “We think the TMS will have another shot at becoming a very exciting, economic play in the future.”

Perhaps, perhaps not—but at least it’s a plan.

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