By JIM BUTLER

Wagner Oil is asking the La. Office of Conservation to create two force-pool reservoirs in Rapides oil and gas fields.

The Fort Worth-based firm has been in oil and gas exploration in the two states, as well as Oklahoma and New Mexico, since 1998.

Forced pooling allows the state to combine interests of property owners with or without mineral rights leasing and without acquiescence into a single drilling and production unit with revenue sharing on a surface acreage basis.

One reservoir sought by Wagner is in the West Cheneyville Field, the other in Master’s Creek Field, also on the parish west side.

Depth projections for the Wilcox Zone drilling units are about 7,500 feet to 11,300 feet.

Hearings on the matter will be held September 3. More information is available on the Conservation web site.

Notice of the hearings does not indicate whether the requested pools are part of the renewed Austin Chalk exploration of recent years though that is most likely.

That play has produced more than 40 million barrels of oil and 200 billion cubic feet of gas, Department of Natural Resources records indicate.