EIght (8) New Permits -- Whiting Issued Three in the Southwest -- Stepping Out Smartly

Producers: Whiting (3), XTO (2), Slawson (2), and Anschutz

Fields: Bicentennial, Heart Butte, Beaver Creek, Big Bend, and Willmen

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All three of the Whiting permits are in the southwest of North Dakota, in the Bicentennial Field in McKenzie County, and in the Beaver Creek field in Golden Valley, and all three are targeting the Three Forks formation.

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The two Slawson wells will be on the same pad, in the Big Bend oil field; Slawson already has a two-well pad in this section. The new permits:

• 20422, Howitzer 2-25H, SESE 24-152N-93W
• 20423, Skybolt 2-24H, SESE 24-152N-93W

The producing wells in this section, also on a two-well pad

• 18287, Skybolt 1-24H, SWSW 24-152-93, short lateral going south, section 25, 911 ; cumulative oil to date (completed December 30, 2009) - 106K
• 18363, Howitzer 1-25H, SESW 24-152-93, short lateral going north, section 24, 1,156 (1,290) (981 -- scout ticket); cumulative oil to date (completed January 16, 2010) - 106K
  

At $50/well, these two wells have nearly paid for themselves; and it looks like they will be producing about 4,000 bbls/month for awhile.

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I began posting the new permits on a daily basis a few months ago. I don't really know why I did it, except I  had some free time and am always curious where doing something new might lead me.

In this case, it has become a very interesting exercise. Instead of just noting the number of new permits, I now get a feeling of which producer is active, and where that producer is active. In some cases I get a better feeling for the company's business plan.

Today, what stands out is this:

• I continue to see a lot of activity by two companies that have now been bought by a larger company; the acquiring company obviously wants to pay for their acquisition
• It is obvious that Whiting stands out among all the producers as the producer aggressively going after the Three Forks; three permits today in Three Forks area

With regard to the two companies that were acquired, for newbies, I am talking about XTO (acquired by XOM) and Anschutz (OXY). Both of these companies were new, or relatively new, to the Bakken.

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Slawson is one of my favorite producers to follow; it is privately held.  And, had I not spent a bit of time on this one, I would have missed the Slawon snake eyes.

I have posted elsewhere the other information on today's daily activity report, namely, the nice KOG well (#18988, 1,835, Two Shields Butte 14-21-33-15H) and Zastoupil (#19258) comes off the confidential list but provides no data despite the fact that the well reached total depth in August, 2010, six months ago.