A couple of years ago Excalibur Exploration Inc. drilled two wells that "looked like they were going to be truly spectacular," says Dave Harker, president of the Greentown, Ohio-based company. Excalibur is a privately owned E&P with assets, including 50 wells, in the Clinton, Rose Run and Trenton-Black River formations in Ohio and the Rome Trough near Winchester, Kentucky. "We had one of the major fracturing companies ask us to try some new technology in the Clinton wells, and they looked like they would be good candidates, worth the expense," he says. The wells were subsequently hydraulically fractured with 50,000 pounds of sand. The formation, in Geauga County, is a prolific producing reservoir in a delta-shelf environment with numerous bars and channels. Average porosity is about 9%, and average permeability is low, about 0.1 milliDarcies, without natural fractures. The Clinton, encountered at 4,100 feet, has net thickness of about 105 feet and bottomhole temperature of 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Pressure depletion is the primary producing mechanism, and the formation usually requires hydraulic fracture-stimulation with proppant. For more on this, see the November issue of Oil and Gas Investor. For a subscription, call 713-260-6441.

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