Fervor grows for Tuscaloosa Marine Shale
Mississippi’s leaders expect a parade of oil drillers to converge on the southwest corner of the state and are happy to cover the cost of striking up the marching music.
When a potential to fill seven billion barrels awaits, let’s get cracking, they say.
So far, state officials are getting the answer they wanted when they extended a lucrative tax break to energy production companies prepared to drill horizontal wells more than 10,000 feet below ground to reach what is known as the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS). The expectation is to extract Texas-size amounts of oil and liquid natural gas drillers have known about for decades but only in recent years have perfected a cost-effective hydraulic fracturing technique that frees the oil and gas from the shale deposits in which it has been trapped for eons.
Mississippi Business Journal
5/17/13
Houston’s Goodrich Petroleum is as close to fully committing to the TMS play as a company gets without an outright declaration. “In all, it is shaping up to be a busy and exciting time in the TMS during the summer and into the fall of 2013,” said Walter ‘Gil’ Goodrich, company CEO and vice chairman, in a first quarter earnings report last month.
Magnolia Tribune
