Oil fields in Beauregard Parish thought to be tapped out in the decades before the 1970s are now hot spots for oil exploration.

The Wilcox Play, a geological formation that stretches from Newton County, Texas, across most of Beauregard Parish, has seen an increase in production from 1 million barrels a month in 2007 to 2.3 million barrels a month in 2012, according to statistics from the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources.

“Beauregard Parish has been a hotbed of activity,” said DNR spokesman Patrick Courreges. “There has been a massive upswing in the past five to six years.”

Houston-based Midstates Petroleum has been the primary player in Beauregard Parish. The company operates wells in the southern part of the parish.

“Many of the oil fields in this trend were discovered by major oil companies in the 1940s and 1950s, but were not fully developed. We have applied modern formation evaluation and drilling and completion techniques to the trend, and, as a result, have identified a large number of drilling opportunities,” reads the company’s website.

Courreges said Midstates has primarily used vertical wells to get to the oil.

During the first quarter of 2013, the company has been operating two wells drilling at depths between 15,000 and 18,000 feet. Two other wells are starting to be drilled.

An investment of $9 million was made into one of the wells, according to the company’s first-quarter financial report.

What makes these wells stand out is that they are consistent, according to Courreges.

“When wells in Beauregard Parish come on, they come on strong and stay that way for a while. They don’t come online with a big splash, but produce plenty of oil,” he said.

He said the profitable price of oil on the world market and technological advances have ushered in a new phase of drilling onshore.

(mgnonline.com)