Office of Conservation

Drilling permit spike highlights trend of increasing exploration

The upturn in drilling permits being handled by the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources Office of Conservation this year continues, with 52 drilling permits having been submitted on Monday.

Jeff Wells, with the Office of Conservation’s engineering staff, said that five to 10 permits is the usual daily intake for the office, with a rush of 20 or more being considered unusually heavy traffic, putting Monday’s intake off the charts in recent memory.

“Maybe 25 or 30, not 50,” Wells said of what he might expect to see, even on a busy permitting day. “It is a surge.”

He said 45 of the 52 permits came through the Office of Conservation’s district office in Shreveport, continuing the trend of heavy interest in northwest Louisiana. Though the Haynesville Shale natural gas find represents some of the drilling permit applications, other oil and gas bearing formations make up the bulk of the Monday rush.

For the year, the Shreveport office has accounted for about 61.5 percent of the permits the Office of Conservation has approved, out of a total of 1,330 permits approved for the state so far this year.

Wells said the Office of Conservation is averaging about 192 drilling permit approvals per month for the year to date, as compared to an average of about 113 a month in 2007.
Based on the activity so far this year, the Office of Conservation is projecting that more than 2,300 new drilling permits will be issued by the end of 2008, or a more than 7 percent increase over the number of permits issued in 2007. Wells said drilling permits from the Shreveport area have been on the increase since about 2002

“The ever-increasing interest in responsibly developing the natural resources in the state, particularly the recent activity in the northwest Louisiana area, promises to bring great benefits to the people and economy of the state of Louisiana,” said Louisiana DNR Secretary Scott Angelle. “I am gratified that, through the efforts and talents of the people in Department of Natural Resources and the processes we have streamlined and made more efficient, the department is able to play its part in keeping up with the burst of growth in energy exploration and production.”

Wells said that drilling permits, if all is in order, are usually turned around for approval in a day, though the recent rush will likely mean a couple of extra days to get everything caught up.

“I think this is only the beginning of DNR setting various permitting and drilling records in Louisiana,” said Louisiana Commissioner of Conservation Jim Welsh. “This is indeed a historical time in our great state.”