🕵️♂️ The Curious Case of Bobby Yancey #1
A 19,000-foot mystery, a stealth rig, and a cast of characters that includes Comstock (or maybe EOG… or Expand?)
Every now and then, a well comes along that’s more spy novel than engineering project.
Let me introduce you to Bobby Yancey #1 — a “test well” in Houston County that has more aliases than a burner phone convention. The Mineral Rights Forum is rife with enough speculation to make even the most ardent TexAgs subscriber blush.
Here’s what we know:
Permitted by Augusta Energy Resources — a company you’ve probably never heard of (because it didn’t exist until January 2024).
Spudded in September with ICD Rig 301, fresh off injection well duty for a Comstock-linked gas storage project in Anderson County.
Finally TD’d in late April 2025.
Drilled to 18,557 feet — the first vertical well in the area permitted that deep since 2012. Haynesville penetrated at 17,640 ft.
If this feels like it’s being done on the down-low... it is. This is what we in the business call a stealth test. I’d speculate that maybe it’s Buda Gate, but the Buda is far shallower.
So who’s really behind the curtain?
Comstock is the obvious first guess. The rig, the gas storage tie-in, and the directional trend from Leon County all fit.
But... EOG has been rumored to be behind a 50,000+ acre leasing push nearby, and they’ve pulled similar moves before.
There’s also chatter about Expand potentially being the puppet master.
And just to muddy the waters, the rig’s been laid down, trucks have moved out, and someone spotted a fancy RV with a gate guard holding the fort — because why not?
🗺️ My Take
This is likely a Type Log / deep core test. Whether it goes horizontal depends on what they saw. Odds are the target is still the Lower Bossier/Haynesville — the same stacked gas zones that Comstock and Aethon are working further west. It’s not THAT far from the recent Freestone monster Comstock announced in earnings.
But there’s also a non-zero chance (but maybe close to zero) this is the opening act of something new — the first real vertical data in an area last seriously chased when shale wasn’t even a buzzword.
🧠 Why it matters
If you're tracking the Waynesville / Eastern Haynesville frontier, this might be the another attempt at expanding the core of this early play.
If the results are good — and if it’s EOG — we could see a land grab soon.
If it’s Comstock? Then this is the quiet prequel to a very loud sequel.
Either way, keep your eye on the Bobby Y.
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