COP In North Dakota: 626,000 Acres; 9 - 10 Rigs

I believe this article was published in a regional newspaper recently (Bismack Tribune?). I don't know if I linked it at the time. I missed some subtleties in the article and need to post it.

ConocoPhillips has 626,000 net acres in the Williston basin with Bakken potential. Plans for 2012 include having 9-10 rigs under contract in the Bakken/Three Forks by yearend, Carroll said. The company has reduced horizontal drilling time by developing new methods and best practices.

First, my data base shows only 460,000 net acres for COP in North Dakota. I update this data base whenever I see acquisitions or divestitures. It's hard to believe I missed COP's growth from 460,000 net acres to over 600,000 net acres.

Also, when North Dakota hit a new record of 217 active drilling rigs, Burlington Resources (the wholly owned subsidiary of COP) showed 8 rigs. The link above says COP intends to move toward 9 - 10 rigs.

Finally, the other subtlety: the spokesman and the article only referenced "COP," and did not mention "Burlington Resources." It is subtle and may mean nothing, or it may mean something significant that will become apparent sometime down the road. But that jump from 460,000 to 626,000 net acres is very, very interesting.

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P.S. It is very possible there has been no change in COP's acreage in the Williston Basin. Note this at the COP website today:

Williston Basin

The company’s position in the Williston Basin is comprised of 460,000 net acres in Bakken, 183,000 net acres in Cedar Creek Anticline and 4 million net acres in other mineral positions, for a total of 4.6 million net acres in western North Dakota and eastern Montana. The company’s 2010 net production from the basin averaged 31 MBD of liquids and 15 MMCFD of natural gas. Plans for 2011 include an increase in total wells by utilizing five drilling rigs for the full year. The company has successfully reduced drilling time by developing and implementing innovative new methods and best practices.

It is possible that COP now considers the Cedar Creek Anticline as a Bakken play (which I thought it was), which has historically been seen as a Red River play.

A most interesting note regarding the Cedar Creek Anticline is found at this link regarding Encore.

This has also led me to an interesting note here, at the website for Family Tree Corporation:

Oil was first found in the Williston Basin along the Cedar Creek Anticline in southeastern Montana, in the 1920s and 1930s. The basin did not become a major oil province until the 1950s when large fields were discovered in North Dakota. Production peaked in 1986, but in the early 2000s significant increases in production began because of application of horizontal drilling techniques.

A more recent story, April 18, 2012:

In addition to Belle Creek, further north is the Cedar Creek Anticline, which Dover called a "monster field." [Denbury] plans to invest $2.5 billion to recover some 200 million barrels of oil. Cedar Creek Anticline is four miles wide and 100 miles long, "and saturated with oil," said Dover. At its peak, the field will produce 40,000 barrels of oil a day.

Finally, one last link. Note this article was originally published in 2010, but an interesting clarification at the very beginning of the story.  This was back in 2010:

Even though it hovers at the western edge of the Bakken, Baker, Montana is being focused upon as “the hub of the Williston Basin.” Baker is where oil companies are headquartering and where pipelines are intersecting.