why isn't the mississippian mentioned more?

Most newspaper writers don't know much about energy. They write about what's hot. For the last several years, it's been easy. They breathlessly tell us about this "new Bakken field" that is producing big quantities of shale oil. Then they usually use that to lead into breathlessly telling us about another "new" shale oil field that is creating headlines.

The Mississippian doesn't quite fit into their story. Yes, it uses horizontal drilling but it is shallower and easier for the oil to flow so it doesn't need 38 stages of hydrofracking to release commercial quantities of oil. It is cheaper to drill and complete and yet has comparable quantities of recoverable oil. But it's not shale oil.

If they mention permeability and explain it and hydrofracking, their article is too long for USA Today and gets cut so they stick to the basics and stick with shale oil fields and shale oil producers.

I think, over time, the Mississippian will get it's due. Sandridge and Chesapeake are providing credibility by drilling dozens of wells with little fanfare. Sandridge is doing the most to inform the public about the potential because they wanted to sell their spinoff Sandridge Mississipian Trust. They did so successfully and I assume the institutions that bought the Trust and also own Sandridge understand the economics of the Mississippian play.

Sandridge and Chesapeake already had big holdings of acreage in Oklahoma and Kansas so I think part of the problem is that they had big chunks of the core area tied up. This may have discouraged other big mid sized players from grabbing acreage. There aren't that many smaller publicly traded way to play the Mississippian. Certainly US investors have not discovered the play and it will take them some time to discover an Australian junior focused on the play.

Need drill results. Without broad investor knowledge of the play, RFE needs production numbers and cashflow to attract US investors. They will learn about the advantages of the Mississippian along the way.