BPX Drills First 4-Mile Haynesville Well, Sees Huge EUR Uplift
BPX Energy is breaking records in the Haynesville Shale, drilling the basin’s first 20,000-ft lateral and planning a new J-turn well, CEO Kyle Koontz said.
DENVER—BPX Energy, the U.S. onshore business for BP Plc, is going bigger in the Haynesville Shale than ever before.
BPX said it has drilled the first 4-mile horizontal lateral in the Haynesville basin, CEO Kyle Koontz said Aug. 18 during the 2025 EnerCom conference in downtown Denver.
The massive Haynesville well, Sorenson 25-36-1-12 1ALT, featured a 20,000-ft lateral and reached its total depth in May.
“We’re in the process of completing and bringing on that well,” Koontz said.
BPX has steadily extended its lateral lengths in the Haynesville, increasing from an average of 10,100 ft in 2022 to 11,600 ft so far in 2025.
The combination of technological advancement and years of in-basin experience are helping drive efficiencies and lower costs for BPX in the Haynesville.
“We’ve seen massive productivity gains in that basin, and we’ve been able to extrapolate those learnings across the Permian and Eagle Ford over the last 18 months,” Koontz said.
BPX is “currently leading in drilling cycle times in the Haynesville,” where it’s beating other top operators by around 600 ft per day, he said.
Haynesville natural gas is not only fueling BPX’s expansion but also playing an increasingly important role across BP’s global operations. Other operators are looking to activate their Haynesville assets as U.S. natural gas prices rise.
“The time has come for the Haynesville,” BP CEO Murray Auchincloss said during the CERAWeek conference in Houston this spring.
BPX produced 136,000 boe/d from the Haynesville during fiscal year 2024, or approximately 816 MMcf/d at a 6:1 Mcf-to-boe ratio. BPX has 414,000 net operated acres in the Haynesville and more than 1,000 core drilling locations remaining in the basin.
BP has upped the ante for its U.S. shale game since making a whopping $10.5 billion acquisition of BHP’s onshore assets in 2018.
The step-change has been particularly evident in the Haynesville. When BPX took over the assets from BHP—assets previously held by U.S. shale pioneer Petrohawk—new Haynesville pads were coming online with rates between 19 MMcf/d and 20 MMcf/d.
Now, BPX is seeing “multiple pads where all the wells are achieving [60 MMcf/d] to 65 MMcf/d,” Koontz said.
“The biggest [Haynesville] pad we’ve produced is about 190 MMcf/d out of only three wells,” he said. “We definitely think we’re pushing the envelope here.”
BPX aims to boost IP rates for new Haynesville pads up to as much as 80 MMcf/d by tinkering with well and completion designs.
“This is where we lean on the BP team sometimes to bring in global experts for sand erosion and velocity [calculations],” Koontz said. “We work with vendor partners to get the best chemical treatment so it doesn’t strip off the interior of the piping.”
Beyond longer laterals and bigger IP rates, BPX is bringing “letter wells” to the Haynesville. So-called U-turn wells, or horseshoe wells, have grown in popularity in the Permian Basin, where leashold constraints can prevent drilling longer 3- to 4-mile laterals.
BPX is planning to spud the first “J-well” in the Haynesville—Snyder 6-38 1ALT—later this month.
“We don’t have the lateral length we would like to in a straight line, but with directional technology we can do creative solutions now,” Koontz said. “We’ve been doing this also in the Permian Basin.”
BPX’s Haynesville wells are estimated to recover around 2.5 Bcf per 1,000 lateral ft, the highest recovery rate among all Haynesville operators, he said.
BPX is pushing the needle on Haynesville development, including a 20,000-ft lateral and the basin’s first J-shaped well. (Source: BPX Energy)
Producers and analysts are eyeing the Haynesville as rising demand for natural gas fuels LNG exports and power generation.
Experts say the Gulf Coast shale play is well situated to supply new LNG export projects coming online along the Texas and Louisiana coasts.
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