Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). And our first question will come from the line of Greg Alexander. Please proceed.
Greg Alexander
Hi. Good morning. I have got a number of questions. One, the Aurora acreage, if you could assume a 100 horizontals by the end of 2009? Am I reading that right?
Ed Cohen
Yes.
Greg Alexander
How much are those? What kind of F&D are you thinking of and [I am not] stressing out too like a lot, you must be hiring a lot?
Matt Jones
Ed, do you want to respond?
Ed Cohen
Yes. If certainly something we can manage this [stretch] lever on Atlas Energy. Certainly, something we can manage. Remember, we have a full operating team in Michigan that will be overseeing its process. It's very, very similar to our operations in the Antrim Shale. And we're going to add a small office and we've already hired almost everyone.
Many of these folks have already been working in the New Albany Shale. It will be located in Indiana. But no, we certainly have the capacity to manage that. We're a company that drilled 1,100 wells last year. And this is not a task that is beyond us.
Greg Alexander
Okay. And in terms of what you are thinking of, in terms of F&D and then does Aurora's past result, I guess, they were mostly in other horizons, so [did that] have any implications for good that horizon is for you and the New Albany?
Ed Cohen
Can you repeat the question please? You cut out on me.
Greg Alexander
I am sorry. First of all, what kinds of F&D are you thinking of and then secondly, does the fact that Aurora had variable successes onto the other horizons have any implication for the one you are looking at.
Ed Cohen
Okay. First of all, from a F&D perspective. I think it's a little bit early for us to declare a finding and development cost. But, what we are anticipating is a drilling complete cost of about $1.3 million per well. And the wells that we've observed, and remember, that we were privy to over 33 successful wells that had been drilled in the last, call it, 18 months, again, to the New Albany Shale in its biogenic part of the play, which is what we're focused on.
And the average reserves or average well had engineered reserves in excess of 1.2 Bcf. So the finding and development cost here could be very, very attractive. But remember, these are shale type well that are going to be, they are not going to come on in huge gang busters, somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000 to 500,000 a day, but they the exhibit very shallow declines. And so, therefore, create a fairly large reserve base and a very long lived.
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