It’s halftime in the epic U.S. shale game with roughly 25 more years of oil drilling left and 22 more years of gas targets, according to a Mizuho Securities USA analysis.
And the undeveloped leasehold that is left carries an average price of $10,000 an acre, ranging from $80,000 in New Mexico’s northern Delaware Basin to $100 on the Permian’s Central Basin Platform.
To date, roughly 290,000 horizontals have been landed in tight rock in the Lower 48 and 270,000 locations remain, Mizuho energy analyst and managing director Nitin Kumar found in a recent study.
The findings are based on a Mizuho database of more than 325,000 horizontals landed across North America since 2005 and more than 81 million data points, such as each well’s gas and oil output, spacing and cost.
“Based on our analysis of remaining inventory … we estimate about 269,000 wells remain across core plays in U.S. shale compared to some 290,000 horizontal wells drilled in core basins since 2008,” Kumar reported.
“At the pace of development in 2024—some 10,800 wells—we estimate this represents roughly 25 years of remaining inventory depth in shale.”
Core and Tier 2
Of the undrilled total, about 13% is in U.S. shale plays’ Tier 1 or core acreage and 22% are in Tier 2 areas, totaling about 93,000 future well locations, which would be some eight to nine years of drilling at the 2024 pace.
“Using the adjusted well productivity for remaining well inventory, we estimate U.S. shale can hold Lower 48 oil volumes flat for about nine years—or until 2033—below $60/bbl WTI,” he wrote.
As for U.S. shale gas, he expects remaining inventory in Appalachia, the Haynesville and other gas-weighted acreage “could sustain their share of U.S. natural gas volumes for approximately 22 years below $3.50/Mcf at the wellhead.”
Operators with the most remaining oil location inventory are Chevron Corp., Hess Corp. (now a part of Chevron as of July 18), Diamondback Energy and Crescent Energy based on their 2024 drilling pace.
Holding the most remaining gas inventory is Range Resources.
In the Permian in particular among public E&Ps there, Diamondback has 25 years remaining, Coterra Energy has 23 and Occidental Petroleum and Chevron each has 22.
In Lower 48 gas plays, Range, Antero Resources, EQT Corp. and EOG Resources (including in the Utica shale) each have more than 15 years remaining.
Across the Midland Basin, Kumar counted roughly 56,000 remaining well locations with public E&Ps holding 77%.
Delaware-wide, there are roughly 52,000 locations left to drill. Public E&Ps hold 77% there as well, he found.
$10,000/acre
The average undeveloped Lower 48 shale acre is worth about $10,000 at $70 WTI and $4 Henry Hub, Kumar added.
“We would note that this estimate has increased by approximately 200% since 2022 via a combination of higher natural gas prices, lower well costs and stable well productivity trends,” Kumar reported.
Just undeveloped Tier 1 leasehold, though, is worth an average of $20,000 an acre across the Lower 48, Kumar found, with the average of the different core areas of the Delaware ($30,700) and Midland ($31,300) basins worth the most.
Among the Permian cores—which include the New Mexico side of the Delaware, Texas-side Delaware, the northern Midland and the Midland’s Howard County—the average value is more than $40,000 per undeveloped acre with the Delaware’s core in New Mexico worth some $80,000 an acre, he found.
He also found that private E&Ps have been pushed to the north and south in the Midland. In the Delaware, “private activity has focused on the New Mexico Shelf to the north and Reeves/Pecos border in the south part of the basin.”
Gas acreage
As for U.S. shale gas acres, Expand holds 17% followed by EQT (14%) and Range (8%).
“Acreage operatorship appears to be less consolidated in gassy sub-basins than the oil assets,” Kumar reported.
“We estimate public E&Ps control approximately 58% of acreage in the northeastern Marcellus, southwestern Marcellus, Texas Haynesville and Eagle Ford dry-gas sub-basins—the four most valuable gas plays.”
He added, “Private operators still control approximately 29% of acreage in these areas.”
The northeastern and southwestern Marcellus areas are worth about $20,000 an acre.