Here is what was in an Oil & Gas Investor April 2011 article on the Mississipian Lime play and Spyglass Energy Group, LLC.
Eastern stage: Spyglass
Charles Wickstrom has been working the Mississippian vertically since 1978, since he was hired by the late Charles W. Oliphant, the legendary founder of Ceja Corp. in Tulsa, when just out of grad school. “The first Mississippian well I ever caused to be drilled was the Kuhn B No. 1 in Osage County in 1979. It is still producing to this day,” says Wickstrom, managing member of Tulsa-based Spyglass Energy Group LLC.
Oliphant may have attempted the first horizontal in the limestone in 1992 in Northeast Lyle Field in Grant County, he adds, where the rock produces from a fractured zone in the lower 200 feet. “Unfortunately, the technology at that time was not up to the task and the well was unsuccessful,” Wickstrom says. “Charles Oliphant was usually 25 years ahead of everyone else and taught me the value of being first.”
In January 2003, Wickstrom did that, drilling the first successful horizontal into the formation. And, in the past year, he applied the lesson of being first again: The privately held company owns an interest in or controls 478,000 gross acres and 379,000 net mineral acres over the Mississippian in the oilier window of the formation, east of the Nemaha Ridge that runs from Nebraska to Oklahoma City.
?Charles Wickstrom, managing member of Tulsa-based Spyglass Energy Group LLC, has accumulated what may be the second-largest leasehold prospective for horizontal Mississippian oil production in northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas. Proving the half-million acres at 640-acre spacing will cost some $1.5 billion.
It’s possibly the second-largest position in the play—second to SandRidge and depending on how much more acreage Chesapeake has accumulated since it last reported its holding in October. Spyglass’ leasehold is in central and northeastern Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas.
“When we saw what was happening in our own wells, we immediately started acquiring acreage and, being on the east side of the Nemaha Ridge, away from what was getting attention in the western region,” Wickstrom says. “We were able to secure that position before all hell broke loose on the leasing front and really drove up the price.”
His active leasing efforts have wound down. “We have enough to say grace over today,” he says.
