Newfield Directional Wells in Utah Being Drilled in 2.8 Days

Transcript here.
Newfield website here.
Yahoo!Financial: NFX

According to the 2Q, 2010, earnings conference call, Newfield set a company record drilling a directional well in 2.8 days, in their Monument Butte play in Utah. They have a 5-rig, 375 well/year program.

Our drilling team in Monument Butte continues to impress and set a recent drilling record of 2.8 days. That’s rig up to rig release and it was on a 20-acre directional well. Our improved drilling efficiencies are allowing us to drill an estimated 375 wells this year, with a five-rig program. It really puts it in perspective when you realize that we are turning a new oil well to sales every day now. This is the essence of a resource play and we are fortunate to have won this oil.

See the rest of the transcript here.

From their mid-year operational update:

Increasing production [in Monument Butte] is primarily attributable to improved drilling efficiencies. The Company recently set a drilling record (rig-up to rig-release) of 2.8 days on a 20-acre directional well. This compares to a 2009 average of 5.5 days and an average of approximately 6.5 days when Newfield acquired the field in 2004. Year-to-date average performance is 4.5 days. Recent gross well costs in Monument Butte range from $700,000 – $900,000. The Company is operating five rigs today and expects to drill about 375 wells in 2010. 

Now, back to the Bakken:

I’ll move on now to the Williston Basin. Our production in this region is the head of original plans and has nearly doubled since the beginning of the year. That production today is more than 4,000 barrels of oil equivalent. We added a fourth operating rig to our program last week and expect that our net production at year end 2010 will be about 6,500 barrels per day in this region.

We have about 160,000 net acres under active development along the Nissan and west of the Nissan, and year-to-date we expect to drill 25 or so wells in the full-year of 2010 cycle. Most of our producing wells to date have had lateral lengths around 4,000 feet, we expect in the second half that half of these wells we will drill, will have extended lateral lengths up to as long as 9,000 feet.

We continue to involve our completion designs to achieve the best results. In our operations release we detail recent well results and you can see several of the wells of initial production rates in excess of 3,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and 30 day averages of a 1,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day or more.

In our Westberg development area on the Nesson Anticline, our recent Garvey Federal 1-29 well is our best to date and had an initial production rate of more than 3,800 barrels of oil equivalent per day from a 3,900-foot lateral.

We’re also seeing good results in our new assessment areas west of the Nesson in the Aquarium/Watford are a Bluefin well had an IP of about 2,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day and was our first Bakken well on this acreage area. More than half of remaining 120 wells this year will have lateral lengths of approximately 9,000 feet.

As a result of our improved drilling and completions we’re now seeing increased UR’s in the range of 500,000 to 750,000 barrels. Recent drilling complete cost for the Williston wells range from $6 to $8 million, gross.

In Q & A:

• 14 - 16 fracture stages
• Fracture: "We’re pumping sand for a bulk of the job and tailing with ceramics."

The question that is still not clear in my mind:

• NDGS estimates 200,000 - 300,000 bbls EUR in each section in the major Bakken counties
• Companies estimate 500,000 - 750,000 bbls EUR/well
• If there is only one long lateral, that about makes sense
• In the Sanish and the Parshall, we are seeing well in excess of one well/section
• So, are we comparing apples and oranges? The companies look at EUR/well; the state looks at EUR/acreage