OXY, She's A Mystery -- September 30, 2015

She's a mystery. OXY.

Earlier this week I received a note about a rumor that OXY had sold its North Dakota assets. OXY had announced last year (2014) that it was shopping its 330,000 acres in North Dakota. OXY also said in late 2014 / early 2015 (I forget) that it had no plans to do any drilling in North Dakota in 2015.

But nothing in the news ... until yesterday. And then, surprise, surprise. OXY has two new permits in southwest North Dakota, both for additional Stroh wells. The Stroh wells featured heavily in my early days of blogging about the Bakken.

Generally, a permit is issued with the expectation that the operator will begin drilling within a year of getting the permit. If not, it's easy to renew the permit, but generally operators don't go around applying for permits without plans to drill. So, it's a mystery.

And the only reason I'm posting this, is so I can post this:

She's A Mystery To Me, Roy Orbison
The two new OXY permits, both on the same pad, NWNW section 13-143-97, and 2560-acre spacing:

• 32047, loc, OXY USA, Raphael Stroh 7-13-24H-143-97L, Crooked Creek, Dunn,
• 32048, loc, OXY USA, Kenneth Stroh 8-12-1H-143-97L, Cabernet, Dunn,

As the area looks today:

There is a tag for the Stroh wells. In addition, although no updated in awhile, I track the Stroh wells here.

By the way, one of the OXY USA Stroh wells should go over 500,000 bbls of oil (cumulative) once the new data is posted.