Lewisville's First Gas Rig is Up and Drilling

Towering above Mount Lewisville today, you can see the top of a drilling rig operated by Nabors on behalf of Chesapeake Energy. This rig is drilling the Duwe (pronounced "Doo-vee") well inside the Farmers Branch "Camelot" landfill. We drove in and shot some video. (We first reported on this well back in December of 2008)



My first impression of the site was that it was very clean, and the noise was not unbearable from our vantage point about 200' to 250' away from the hole.

This well is important and is being closely watched by the city and its residents for several reasons:

- This is the first Barnett Shale gas well being drilled within the city limits, and is also the farthest well East with respect to the Muenster arch formation, which was thought to run roughly along the I-35E corridor.

- The quality of this well will provide additional data about what the formations directly under the populated part of the city might produce. If this well produces well, it would possibly make the neighborhoods between it and Williams Company's "Sam Wilson" Unit 4-6H in Flower Mound, a bigger and more lucrative target. Sam Wilson produced 20,646,000 cubic feet of natural gas in November, 2008 - the last month for which production data was available.

- This well is the first test of Lewisville's Oil and Gas Ordinance and well permitting process, one of the toughest in the area.

- The site is very close to the Elm Fork of the Trinity River, which runs directly to the West of the site.

The landfills in Lewisville are dotted with hundreds of small gas wells which recover landfill gas that fuel electricity generation.

Related Links:
Chesapeake Site Plan