August 7, 2021: 1354 -- a Lodgepole reef well; sudden, unexplained jump in production.
September 30, 2019: two wildcats targeting the Lodgepole south of Dickinson.
December 5, 2017: a lengthy update of my understanding of Lodgepole reef wells.
April 6, 2012: "Lodgepole: General" and "Lodgepole: News" were combined and all postings placed on this page this date. This date I separated out Lodgepool Reefs from Lodgepole Non-Reef Formation.
It looks like the NDIC places wells targeting the Lodgepole formation north of Williston and the wells targeting the Lodgepole Reefs around Dickinson in the same Lodgepole Pool.
This was a confusing area for me when I first started the blog several years ago, and posts older than this date regarding the Lodgepole may be "incorrect."
This is why the Lodgepole is important: Marathon may have found the third production zone in the Williston Basin, amenable to both vertical drilling and horizontal drilling depending on the drilling site. That link is archived here.
If you want to see a really incredible conventional Lodgepole well, look at Dinsdale 2-4. This well was a conventional well spudded in 1996 with an initial production of 3,357 barrels of oil per day. In 1996, we had not even heard of horizontal drilling, much less fracture stimulation. That conventional well, still in production, has produced a total of 4,634,619 barrels to date and its daily production remains significant.
Also, be sure to check out an Anschutz well that might be targeting the Lodgepole.
Finally, Armstrong has reported on a Lodgepole well inside the city limits of Dickinson and will be applying for another permit for the Lodgepole in the immediate area on October 29, 2009.
September 12, 2017: a new operator in the Williston Basin will target the Lodgepole in the Dickinson area.
April 30, 2012: 21347, DRL, Wesco, Gruman 31-18, Stark County, Eland field, Lodgepole
September 17, 2010: Halek announces plan to target the Lodgepole near Dickinson.
March 9, 2010: Update on a conventional well, the Laurine Engel 1.
December 10, 2009: Armstrong has Dickinson city permission to drill another Lodgepole well. General information on the Lodgepole at this page.
Staggering numbers for select Lodgepole wells.
Update on the Lodgepole and "Oil for America." This posting is a must-read for those interested in the Lodgepole.
More on the Lodgepole, November 25, 2010.
See also: Lodgepole News.
Two journal articles that might get one excited about the Lodgepole:
- Dickinson area: center of huge expanse of the Lodgepole; unfortunately this link is broken; no longer takes you to the correct article
- Technical research paper: could rival other formations
If you want to learn about the Lodgepole, this is where I would start: the Bakkenshale.blogspot.
Although a bit tedious to read, this is an interesting thread on recent Lodgepole discovery (link is broken).
Another thread on the Lodgepole (link is broken).
This thread on the Lodgepole got me very, very excited (link is broken) (someone calculated potential production at 4,000 bbls/day based on initial show. That turned out to be a mistake, but the main point was not lost: the Lodgepole, the Three Forks Sanish and the Bakken may be three major formations. The US Geologic Survey was based solely on the "Bakken pool" -- which included both the Bakken formations and the Three Forks formations but NOT the Lodgepole, or the several other oil-producing formations in North Dakota.
Finally, I got around to this, linking to an article about the exciting vertical wells that targeted the Lodgepole back in the 1990s. I have to thank the folks who have commented on this blog, reminding me of these wells. See comments below.
