Robert Barba, Austin Phoenix Resources
The Waha Witch is Dead! Now how do we keep it filled to meet upcoming major LNG demand on the Gulf Coast with data centers siphoning off huge volumes in basin that could have gone to the LNG plants? When LNG experts are asked where the bulk of the necessary incremental production will come from a frequent answer is “West Texas.” Pipeline investors saw this situation coming and are responding in force to put in enough takeaway capacity to help meet the need for incremental production. The expected additions to the Waha system in 2026 are staggering with 6.6 BCFD of additional capacity increasing to over 10 BCFD by 2028. On the supply side the expected incremental supply in 2026 was less than 200 MMCFD. Between the newly added virtually unlimited capacity and huge demand growth West Texas gas has the potential to be the next $100 oil at a time when oil prices are struggling to stay above $60. At a minimum Waha should be on par or better than Henry Hub which was the case prior to the capacity bottleneck pricing disaster.
For those of us that operate gas fields connected to the Waha system this is like an early Christmas after many years of intermittent positive and negative prices. At the time of this abstract preparation in late November 2025 the price is negative. In the last 12 months the price was negative 50% of the time. Once this bottleneck is removed from mid 2026 on natural gas producers connected to Waha should get a consistent economic return on investment for the first time in several years.
There are a large number of existing wellbores in the US that have significant volumes of stranded gas.. There are over 8400 active wells in the area between the Ozona and Sonora fields. Barba (2018 SPE Refrac Workshop) proposed an extensive oil based refrac program for the Canyon Sand in the Val Verde basin of West Texas. He formed Austin Phoenix Resources (APR) with Richard Ganem in 2012 to recover the stranded gas using hydrocarbon based fluids expecting to use the Gasfrac system. APR acquired 21 wells in the Ozona field 13 miles SW of Ozona. Openhole logs were available on every well to estimate original gas in place and the field was fully drilled on 40 acre spacing. The original completions pumped small volumes of proppant in one stage at low rates with perforated intervals as long as 448 ft. Average perforated length was 300 ft. From 2012 through the beginning of the Waha price crash APR proved conclusively with several tests that water based systems cannot be used in the Canyon sand for refracturing treatments. The Gasfrac system was not attempted since their quotes were in the $1.2MM range and subsequent analysis indicated the system did not work as advertised. APR did a review of all 8400 wells in the area and there were no production increases observed in any wells indicating a refrac was attempted. With the total failure of all of the APR water based fluid tests that was not surprising. The damage mechanism is most likely capillary phase trapping in the water wet sub irreducibly water saturated sands. Ironically new wells in the field have produced albeit 1/5 of their mobile gas volumes. This is most likely from the high initial reservoir pressures and small fluid volumes limiting the total amount of damage. A recent study done in a European sub irreducible Sw reservoir indicated a 99.9% reduction in effective gas permeability from the initial permeability to the post stimulation permeability.
APR is currently moving forward to do the first Y Grade treatment to carry microproppant to prove the oil based systems are the key to avoiding the massive formation damage leading to the poor 10% gas recoveries. A backup plan is to use mineral oil and microproppant which is 4x more expensive than the Y Grade. The $400k AFE estimate assumes the more expensive mineral oil will be used. This paper will summarize the situation in the basin and provide the details for the proposed waterless refrac treatment program.