Additionally, we have captured more than 250,000 net acres in the Tuscaloosa marine shale located in Mississippi and Louisiana. We will drill our first horizontal well starting next month. Although unproven today, we see this opportunity as a large unconventional oil- and liquids-rich natural gas resource play.
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Mark Gilman - The Benchmark Company, LLC
Okay. Jeff, it's been suggested by some that the Tuscaloosa marine shale is stratigraphically equivalent to the Eagle Ford. Do you share those views? Or do you see it a little bit differently?
Jeff Wojahn
I've been told by our geologist not to say that the way you had described it because I'm not an expert in the regional geology. But from what I understand, the Eagle Ford is separated by kind of the Sabine platform uplift. And really, although it looks laterally equivalent, it is a different type of play than the Eagle Ford. So hopefully, I didn't offend any geologists by the way I described it.
Mark Gilman - The Benchmark Company, LLC
Could you elaborate what you mean by that, Jeff, in terms of different type of play?
Jeff Wojahn
Well, it's a reservoir that has some silt and sand content in it versus the Eagle Ford, which is a clean shale.
Mark Gilman - The Benchmark Company, LLC
Okay. Could you give us just a little bit of an idea what the acreage costs were for your entry into the Tuscaloosa and the additional Duvernay acreage, which you acquired?
Jeff Wojahn
Sure. I'll start with the Tuscaloosa. This is a play that we entered very early for very low costs. We have a number of options and commitments, so I can't get specific on the range. But it ranges $42,000 to $50,000 area, somewhere between $40 million and $50 million.
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We also entered into an agreement to be the sole supplier of liquefied natural gas to a fleet of 200 LNG, heavy-duty trucks in Louisiana through our mobile LNG fueling station. In addition, we opened 2 compressed natural gas fleet fueling stations in Colorado and British Columbia. The cost advantage and environmental benefits of natural gas create a compelling case for Encana and others to adopt natural gas as a transportation fuel of choice in North America.
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Carrie Tait - National Post
Okay. You mentioned LNG fueling in Louisiana and I think in Colorado. Is this a business that you want to grow, get into?
Randall Eresman
We're not sure if we want to do this for ourselves, but we know we need to show leadership. And we want to make sure that LNG is used in transportation in North America, and we're basically walking the talk.
Carrie Tait - National Post
How do you decide if it's something that you want to do?
Randall Eresman
We will have to look at the competitiveness of the financial model. And it's going to take us a little while before we fully understand that. We know that there are going to be opportunities in and around our areas of operation that will probably make sense for us to be in some portion of that value chain. We're just going to have to figure out over time what that's going to be. In the meantime, we're investing on a variety of these kind of things in the order of $50 million to $100 million a year.
Carrie Tait - National Post
Are they making money?
Randall Eresman
I'm going to turn that over to Eric Marsh.
Eric Marsh
Yes. I think the answer is that the natural gas stations that we have, we actually have 5 operating, and 4 of them actually can -- will make money on a monthly basis. But what really dictates the money that you make is the throughput. So as -- if you're breaking even today and the number of vehicles that you have in that area grow, they begin to become profitable. But yes, that's our plan, is to be profitable on every CNG station that we make.
Randall Eresman
Carrie, the benefit for the users, those that convert their vehicles to natural gas, in the same way where we converted our drilling rigs to natural gas or starting to look at our frac-ing equipment in natural gas, financial benefits to us are huge. It really is just getting more places where people can fill up their vehicles and more opportunities for fleets to convert that is required, and I guess more people aware of what the huge price advantages or cost advantages to moving towards using more natural gas in the transportation sector.
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