Locator: 51611MANCOS.
Update: Tallgrass Energy: Advances regional pipeline projects to connect San Juan and Mancos gas to the growing Arizona and western markets. Now, who in the world would need natural gas in Arizona? Oh, that's right. TSM. Northside of Phoenix.
RBN Energy: is gas production in the San Juan Basin's Mancos Shale about to rebound? Link here. Archived.
A small cadre of E&Ps active in the San Juan Basin’s Mancos Shale is anticipating breakout growth in natural gas production there if and when gas prices rise, and a well-known midstreamer is planning what could eventually be a high-capacity gas pipeline to the burgeoning Arizona market.
Still to be determined, however, is whether the moonscape-like region along the New Mexico-Colorado border emerges as a mini-Haynesville or the optimism withers and dies under the hot desert sun. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss what producers have been saying about their results in — and hopes for — the Mancos and the plan by Tallgrass Energy to build a new, large-diameter pipeline out of the play.
In our 2026 prognostications blog back in January, we said, “There’s been a lot of market buzz around a handful of niche gas plays that share a common profile: the gas is dry, wells are deeper than legacy development in the area, reservoirs are often overpressured, initial production (IP) rates are high, and economics look compelling.” We noted that in the San Juan Basin, “operators are ignoring legacy coalbed methane and targeting the deeper, horizontally drilled Mancos Shale. Our prognostication? These smaller ‘dry-gas islands’ ... are likely to command much more attention in 2026.”
In fact, there has been a lot of talk about the Mancos this year — and a major acquisition (following a big deal last year) — but it’s likely that the production breakout some are predicting may still be a year or two away (and maybe more).
First, a little history. Gas production in the San Juan Basin in northwestern New Mexico and southwestern Colorado has experienced a lot of ups and downs since the first commercially successful gas well was drilled there 105 years ago. In the years up to and just after World War II, the challenge was getting gas to market; the San Juan was hundreds of miles from large population centers and there was hardly any pipeline infrastructure in place. The completion of the El Paso Natural Gas (EPNG) pipeline to California in the early 1950s spurred a boom in conventional gas production in the basin, and (after a handful of mini-booms and mini-busts) there was a late-century surge in coalbed methane production from the uppermost Fruitland Formation (dark-brown layer on right side of Figure 1 below). By 2000, the San Juan Basin was among the U.S.’s top gas production areas, churning out nearly 4.5 Bcf/d of gross gas, or about 8% of total U.S. onshore production at the time.
Despite sagging production lately, there’s optimism among Mancos Shale E&Ps that it will shine in time. “Our Mancos Shale position represents one of the most compelling emerging natural gas opportunities in North America,” Mach Natural Resources CEO Tom Ward said during the company’s August 7 earnings call. “The well performance rivals that of the better-known Haynesville and Marcellus shale plays, with operators recently reporting Mancos initial production rates exceeding 25 MMcf/d of gas.”
Ward noted during the call that the cost of a typical 3-mile lateral in the Mancos Shale has been declining fast over the past couple of years, from nearly $20 million to less than $15 million, with the expectation that costs for the E&P’s ongoing drilling program will be “in the $13 million range for a completed well.”
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A Musical Interlude
Link here. Flowers. Miley Cyrus.
Dolly Parton was the official godmother and close mentor to Miley Cyrus after being asked by Miley's father, Billy Ray Cyrus, when Miley was born in 1992. Billy Ray and Dolly Parton were close friends.
