Once upon a time in the early 2000s, modern fracking techniques combined with horizontal drilling changed the impossible to unlock hydrocarbons from tight rock. Now 25 years later, and producing more oil and gas than ever imagined, independent producers are faced with the threat of declining volumes from their core assets. In the wake of this, exploration is on the rise in basins and plays once considered over and done.

Reese Energy Consulting today is following the latest from Okla. City-based Flywheel Energy, which is betting its beans and cornbread on the Fayetteville Shale—a play on the Ark., side of the dry gas Arkoma Basin shared with Okla. Recognized in 2004 as one of the nation’s largest oil fields, producers came rushing early. Times were good until they weren’t when gas prices fell off a cliff. By 2016 not a single active rig dotted the 34,000 square mile landscape. But where others bailed in the Fayetteville, Flywheel found a grand entry.

The company in 2018 snapped up the upstream and midstream assets from the play’s largest player, Southwestern Energy Company. The $1.8 billion deal included more than 900,000 acres and 716 MMCFD from 4,033 producing wells. Flash forward to 2025. Flywheel now controls 5,600 wells in the Fayetteville producing 775 MMCFD and will invest up to $30 million to drill another five this year in what will be its first major drilling program since the Southwestern acquisition.