Haynesville, a small town in northern Louisiana, is mostly known for two things — its annual butterfly festival and the gargantuan Jurassic-era natural gasfield that lies more than 10,000 feet below its houses.
The Haynesville Shale field is both deep and wide, stretching out over 9,000 square miles in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. With an estimated 152mn barrels of oil and 47.9tn cubic feet of gas reserves yet to be discovered, it is one of the biggest in the world, and one of the main reasons why the US has become the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
The field was first exploited in 2008, and there are now 62 rigs dotted across the region. However, the biggest owner and operator of gas drilling rigs at Haynesville is not an energy company, but a hedge fund: Ken Griffin’s Miami-based Citadel.