CLR's First Eco-Pad

Continental Resources, Inc., (NYSE: CLR) spudded its first Eco-Pad well.The Kennedy 2-31T is located in the Dimmick Lake oil field, McKenzie County. If you are not familiar with the concept of an Eco-Pad, click here.

If you want to see history in the making, and can't drive there yourself, go to the GIS map server: it's pretty exciting. CLR has four permits/wells aligned, sort of like Orion's belt: #18541, #18542, #18543, and #18544. The wells are about eleven (11) miles northeast of Watford City.

Kennedy 2-31T is #18544, and the farthest east of the four.
Kennedy 1-31M is #18543, and second from the west.

Miles 1-6M is #18541, farthest to the west.
Miles 2-6T is #18542, second from the east.

By the nomenclature, one can tell that #18544 and #18542 (the even ones) are targeting the Three Forks Sanish, and the other two, the odd-numbered ones, are targeting the Middle Bakken.

So, it's M-M-T-T, one going north; one going south; one going north; one going south.

From the McKenzie County Farmer:

“The concept allows us to drill four rigs on a single location,” says Jeff Hume, Continental Resources president/COO. “The Eco-Pad drills all four wells simultaneously by completing the first step for one hole and then moving to the next until step one has been completed on each of the four holes. Then it returns to the first hole and moves to step two. It’s really amazing to see how fast the rig moves from hole to hole. The company is excited to see this new concept up and running.”

Normally, for a company to drill four wells, it would need four pads, each one about five acres in size. The company would drill one hole and then rig down and drive the rig to another location, a process that takes around five days, and then rig up and start the second hole. The Eco-Pad Concept allows the rig to move from one hole to the next using hydraulic legs instead of rigging down and moving it with trucks.

This area is not particularly active at the moment. The nearest producing well to this Eco-Pad for which I have an IP is a Burlington Resources well, long lateral, two miles south (#17635): 740 bbls/day. South of that well is another long lateral BR well, #17371, with an IP of 695. These are nice wells, but not exactly "the Parshall."

So, now we wait and see.