For Newbies: Why The Bakken Is So Exciting -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

The current boom in western North Dakota is focusing on the Bakken Pool (three Bakken formations and two Three Forks formations).

But let's take a look at something else for a moment.

Go to the GIS map server at the NDIC website.

Zoom in on the Cedar Hills oil field in the southwestern part of the state. There are as many as eight (8) laterals running through these sections. Here are the file numbers, the date spudded, the formation, and the total oil produced to date:

• 13944, South Red River B, 1996, 308K
• 15875, South Red River B, 2005, 440K
• 15876, South Red River B, 2005, 436K
• 15297, South Red River B, 2002, 28K 
• 15848, South Red River B, 2005, 184K
• 15846, South Red River B, 2005, 343K
• 15847, South Red River B, 2005, 603K
• 14108, North Red River B, 1996, 417K
• 15354, North Red River B, 2003, 10K
• 16491, North Red River B, 2007, 204K
• 16144, North Red River B, 2006, 135K
• 16194, North Red River B, 2006, 206K
• 14109, North Red River B, 1996, 273K
• 15264, North Red River B, 2008, 25K
• 14014, North Red River B, 1997, 250K
• 16691, North Red River B, 2007, 188K
• 15318, North Red River B, 2008, 13K

Some comments:

• For newbies, any well with cumulative > 100,000 wells is a very good well
• These wells are not all that old
• On the other other hand, the older wells (1996) shows how long these wells produce
• Almost all these wells are still producing very nicely; some quite nicely
• The 17 wells picked up above, were picked completely randomly from the GIS map server (from the same immediate area, but the area was picked randomly from the Cedar Hills field; note that only three wells were not good wells; that's a pretty nice success rate; there are not many "dry" wells or "abandoned" wells in this area)
• CLR has been in this area from the beginning; to me, the Red River seems pretty good, but yet, CLR says they've never seen oil production like they are seeing in the Bakken
• #14108, spudded in 1996, is still producing at 3,000 bbls/month (water injected); that production level exceeds much of its past history of production
• If the Bakken was not as exciting as the Red River, the operators would not be spending $7 million on a Bakken well when they could be drilling the Red River formation
• One producing well holds that lease by production "forever" and the right to put in more wells in that same leased area
• Again, there are as many as 8 horizontals running through these sections in the Cedar Hills oil field; based on dockets coming to the NDIC last month and this month, we are going to see the same number of horizontals in the areas focusing on the Bakken