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Top 10 Barnett Shale Producers through 2007 (TRRC)
Giddings Productive, Low Risk History
Austin Chalk production began in the Giddings Field in 1960 with the City of Giddings #1 well in Lee County. Giddings Austin Chalk drilling began in earnest after 1973 when this abandoned well was re-completed with an acid frac job and began flowing over 350 bbl/day. It
has since produced over 600,000 barrels of oil. This established the chalk as a fractured
reservoir play, and it was soon determined that fractures could be located with seismic data. A
drilling phase of about 4,400 vertical wells ensued, where the chalk has produced 772 million
barrels of oil and 4.8 trillion cubic feet of gas. The Giddings Field dominates the region,
accounting for 65% of the oil and 75% of total production from the trend.
A new life was given to the Giddings Field with the advent of horizontal drilling technology.
This enabled industry to drill horizontally through vertical fractures in the gently dipping chalk
and thereby intersect more fractures in a single wellbore. This led to some extremely prolific
horizontal wells, commonly in areas already densely drilled by vertical wells.
Both the Austin Chalk and Georgetown Formations are gently dipping, fractured carbonate
reservoirs with near-vertical fractures. This makes them ideal for low risk development by
horizontal drilling.
About 45% of the Giddings Field oil and 66% of the gas have been produced from 2,100
horizontal wells.
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