Nov 25, 2025 Current Resources

New Monster Gas Wells Are Outperforming Legacy Haynesville Deposits

Rystad Energy

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By Rystad Energy - Nov 24, 2025, 4:00 PM CST

The Western Haynesville gas play is gaining attention for its highly productive, deep, and overpressured wells, which are up to twice as productive as median legacy Haynesville wells.
The high productivity comes with a high cost, as drilling and completion (D&C) expenses are currently around $35 million per well, which is triple the cost of legacy Haynesville wells.
For the play to be economically viable and become a major supply source, operators must reduce D&C costs to approximately $25 million, which could enable the region to reach nearly 2 Bcfd of production by the end of 2030 with an eight-rig development program.

With the US in the midst of a gas demand boom driven by liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects and surge in electricity demand amid the steady buildout of data centers, the Western Haynesville has increasingly garnered attention as a promising source of future supply. The area, located roughly 150 miles north of Houston, Texas, in the Robertson, Freestone and Leon counties, has seen 60 wells drilled over the past four years. The wells are twice as productive as the median legacy Haynesville wells, but are as much as triple the drilling and completion (D&C) cost. The eventual success will come down to whether operators can continue to drive down costs in the region while replicating (or improving) the productivity of the initial wells.

After garnering much attention when the first ‘monster’ well was completed in 2022, the area has recently come back to prominence as Comstock Resources shifts capital expenditure (capex) toward the play, and as new operators such as Japan’s Mitsui, private E&P Hilcorp and North America’s largest natural gas producer Expand Energy have entered. The high costs and high productivity of the play stem from its geology, as the far western stretches of the Haynesville and Bossier shales are found at true vertical depths of about 17,000 feet (5,180 meters) or deeper and contain overpressured reservoirs and extremely high bottomhole temperatures.

Mitsui joined Comstock and Aethon with its first well in 1Q25 and has since drilled four, although none have yet reported production. In terms of producing wells, 33 have come online since 2Q22, with Comstock having started three in 3Q25. Production has skyrocketed from zero in 2022 up to 500 million cubic feet per day (MMcfd) as of August 2025, with Comstock accounting for 347 MMcfd and Aethon 164 MMcfd.

Comstock, a public E&P majority-owned by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, has been the leader in the area, deploying extensive capital and rigs to delineate the play. Comstock has maintained four rigs in the Western Haynesville for much of 2025, at one point double its legacy Haynesville count, and now intends to run four rigs in each area moving forward into next year.

Wells in the region have noticeable higher initial productivity and shallower declines compared to the legacy Haynesville. Thus far, Western Haynesville wells in more recent vintages have performed well, illustrating that the pilot wells drilled started in 2022 were no fluke. Most impressively, West Haynesville wells thus far have not shown the extreme front-loaded production curve of legacy Haynesville wells, where much of the wells’ ultimate recovery is produced on the first few years on production. For example, the 2022 vintage median Louisiana well produced 0.574 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per 1,000 feet in its first year on production, grew to cumulative 0.813 Bcf per 1,000 feet in its second and reached a cumulative total of 0.97 Bcf per 1,000 through its first three years of production. By contrast, West Haynesville wells have shown far less decline between years. Comstock’s Circle M well, one of the first to begin producing in the play, nearly doubled between cumulative production 12 and 24-months online and rounded out a growth of over 0.4 Bcf per 1,000 feet in cumulative production between years two and three.

Nonetheless, it remains to be seen whether these same results can be replicated across the aerial extent of the play, as the wells so far have been confined to a narrow stretch of land in Leon and Robertson counties. With Comstock and Mitsui drilling outside of this initial area and Expand leasing acreage to the east, results should soon begin to come in signaling to what extent this performance can be replicated north and eastward.

With West Haynesville wells showing commercial potential from their astounding productivity, the play’s ultimate success will come down to the extent to which producers can reduce costs. The unforgiving conditions of the play: deep, overpressured and hot require cutting edge drilling technology and high proppant loads, making wells structurally very expensive. Producers have thus far made some strides in bringing down drilling days. Early wells consistently took about 80 days from spud to total depth, with some as high as 133. During 2023 and 2024, aside from a few outliers, most median quarterly cycle times have come down – including one well spud by Aethon in 2Q24 that reached total depth in 49 days.

As with any emerging play, the questions are ultimately scale and economics. Figure 1 analyzes the Henry Hub breakeven gas price sensitivity for West Haynesville wells to various discount rates and D&C costs. Assuming productivity holds in line with the 2022-2023 average well type curve, we find that a $35 million D&C cost – a typical cost for many of the wells so far – translates to a Henry Hub price of $4.60 needed to break even at a 20% discount rate. By comparison, the average 2022-2023 vintage legacy Haynesville well breaks even at $3.17 and $3.56 in Louisiana and Texas, respectively, at this discount rate. Even if D&C costs come down to $30 million, which has been realized for more recent wells, producers will still need above $4 Henry Hub to break even. Still, if operators can systematically push D&C costs down towards $25 million and maintain well performance, producers could break even on a PV20 basis at $3.67 – a level that is not far off the legacy Haynesville and could make the play a viable supply source in an upcoming bullish price environment.

Well costs need to come down further to make the play a true growth play. Figure 2 analyzes potential output for the region under various rig scenarios. We find that in a flat five-rig scenario, a level which can be seen as the status quo given Comstock’s outlined four-rig program and a likely off-and-on approach from Mitsui and Aethon, production can double to 1 Bcfd in four years in November 2029. This is more likely our base case development program, in which operators gradually expand towards an eight-rig program, which could see an extra rig from Comstock along more consistent one-rig development from Mitsui, Aethon and Expand. With a consistent eight rigs running by late 2026, production could quickly exceed 1 Bcfd in September 2027 and grow to just shy of 2 bcfd by end-2030, adding significant supply to the total US mix.

The new play has generated considerable buzz and has undoubtable potential. Rystad Energy will continue to monitor the extent to which operators can bring down well costs, achieve efficiencies and expand the areal extent of the play. With what we’ve seen thus far, the potential of the play using current type curves and costs would be roughly 2 Bcfd by the end of 2030, with a consistent eight-rig development program (currently there are five rigs in the area). The fan of outcomes will continue to evolve as new well results come in.

By Matthew Bernstein, Vice President, North America Oil & Gas Research at Rystad Energy

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