He kind of sped through his explanation, but I think it mostly works. Basically, the land he wants to lease had shallow production years ago and dried up. The leases expired because of no production. He believes the Wolfcamp formation is under those leases. So he can take a new leases for “cheap” and drill the Wolfcamp. If he can get production from a couple wells and show a trend, a much larger company might buy his package of leases. Double Eagle is a recent example.
OR
He do exactly the same thing, but hold on to the leases and develop them himself. He will 1000% need financing for this. A few producing wells wouldn’t be enough to bankroll his entire play. Not in this day and age. But this is the Sheridanverse, so anything is possible.
Again there are some success stories. Jerrah’s tall tale. Armand Hammer invested in a few barn burner California oil wells in a company that eventually became Oxy.
Hilcorp is probably the best example Pig Pen’s plan. Taking old producing areas that aren’t worth the squeeze for majors, fixing it up/modernizing the equipment/drilling deeper formations, and getting new life out of it.