Madison Group

Updates

April 15, 2019:

• Red Wing Creek, see this post;
• #35030, a DUC, reported as completed this date; see this post;
• #20240, sister well on the pad...Madison, t6/11; cum 401K 2/19;

September 16, 2017: Oasis to sell off non-core ND/MT assets; mostly Madison wells.

August 17, 2017: two interesting Madison wells; both re-entered wells.

August 12, 2017: there are indications that interest in the Madison is about to pick up  --- not with vertical wells, but with horizontal wells. Petro Harvester is the one to watch. 

May 24, 2017: Sedalia reports a nice horizontal Madison well northeast of Minot. 

April 6, 2012: Note: according to the North Dakota Geologic Society, the Lodgepole formation is part of the Madison Group.

The Madison Group is made up of three formations; the Lodgepole, Mission Canyon, and Charles, in ascending order (Fig. 6). These formations are conformable in the basin center, but exhibit complex intertonguing relationships along the basin margins.

However, according to Teegue:

The Lodgepole is not part of the Madison Pool. Teegue states that the Madison Pool is almost always defined as from the base of the Last Salt to the top of the Lodgepole formation.

And that makes sense, what Teegue says. Interestingly, on the sundry form accompanying the Oasis Clark well in Tyrone oil field north of Williston, the pool was originally typed in as "Bakken" only to be crossed out and inked in with Lodgepole.

Teegue goes on:

[I]t [the Oasis Clark well] will either be placed in the current or amended Bakken pool or a newly established Lodgepole pool.

NEWS 

(Only Significant News)

August 22, 2016: a Madison well -- the first one reported in a long time, north of Minot:

• 31365, SI/NC, Statoil, Topaz 20-17 5TFH, Banks, no production data,
• 32377, IA/36, Prairie Hills Oil and Gas, LLC, McCarroll 1H, Grover, a Madison well, Target Horizon: Sherwood;  320-acre spacing; W2 of section 16-162-66; t3/16; cum 2K 6/16;  drilling plan: true vertical depth, 5,021 feet; TD = 9,446 feet; went inactive 8/16; sundry form received June, 2017, suggests work being done on this well;  PA as of 7/16;  

According to dmr.nd:

The Madison Group has been divided into a number of informal, wireline log-defined intervals. In ascending order, they are the Bottineau, Tilston, Landa, Wayne, Glenburn, Mohall, Sherwood, Bluell, Coteau, Dale, Nesson, Midale, Ratcliffe, and Poplar intervals. Hendricks subdivided the Ratcliffe interval into several subintervals, the Berentson, Alexander, Flat Lake, Charles C, Lustre, and Eggebrecht.

Comments:

This is the only well/permit currently held by Prairie Hills Oil and Gas, LLC. This well is API: 33-075-01484. This company has been mentioned before on the blog and linked this oilpatchdispatch story. It looks like the company is a ND limited liability company that filed on June 2, 2015, with a registered agent in Bismarck, ND, and a principal address in Big Lake, MN.

March 30, 2014: update on wildcat wells 35 miles northwest of Minot which will probably all be Madison wells. 

July 29, 2012: notice comments at this posting regarding the Mission Canyon formation being targeted along the Canadian border:

It does appear that Surge believes Madison/Mission Canyon may be a second target from the Spearfish. Even though NDIC names the Spearfish to be Spearfish Madison, the drilling lands in the Spearfish on the 15 or so wells that EOG, Corinthian and Legacy have drilled since horiz drilling started in 2009 in Bottineau County. Most of the older wells in this area of ND targeted the Madison using vert drilling. These are now stripper or abandoned. It will be interesting to find out more about the Mission Canyon hearings as these are right in the middle of what has been for the last 3 years an attempt to establish a Spearfish play. If the objective is Mission Canyon, then these two wells will be slightly deeper as the Spearfish overlays the Madison in this area. It will also will be interesting to find out if horiz Madison is the objective. Sure seems as tho Surge saw something on the seismic in mc and want a closer look.

January 9, 2012: a million-bbl-Madison well!

January 6, 2012: Some interesting Madison wells transferred from Citation to Oxy Little Knife LLC

December 24, 2011: random look at some Madison wells in the Hawkeye oil field

December 23, 2011: random look at some Madison wells in the Little Knife oil field

December 2, 2011: Finally, others starting to talk about the Madison

November 25, 2011: Taking another look at the Bakken

October 26, 2011: Whiting's Madison wells in Big Stick field (Billings County).

January 31, 2011: A Madison well with an IP>1,000 bbls and 37,000 bbls cumulative after only 3.5 months.

ORIGINAL POST

In addition to the Bakken, there are several other formations of interest in North Dakota. Despite all the attention the Bakken is getting, the primary oil-producing interval in the Williston Basin remains the Madison Group.

Through December, 2009, cumulative totals of oil production for the following formations (data from NDIC):

• Bakken: 119,635,155
• Madison: 905,377,939 
• Red River (all): 217,564,177
• Spearfish (all): 53,667,202 

North Dakota will produce about 100 million barrels of oil this year. Even if that entire production was from the Bakken, and it clearly isn't (there are a lot of legacy wells), it would still take several years for the Bakken to surpass the Madison in total oil output.

The Madison Group is divided into three formations in the Williston Basin: the Lodgepole, the Mission Canyon, and the Charles.

Note that KOG has a rig in the Red River-Mission Canyon play in Montana just across the border and west of Williston. 

Background

In a study published in September, 2005, by the PCO2R Parnership (the federal government's Energy and Environmental Research Center [EERC] and the University of North Dakota), the authors noted:

1. The Madison GSU (aquifer) underlies both the Williston and Powder River Basins. It has the potential to be a significant sequestration unit in the PCOR Partnership region.

2. In the Williston Basin, the Madison is given group status and divided into three formations, which in ascending order are the Lodgepole, Mission Canyon, and the Charles. The Lodgepole and Mission Canyon are carbonates and have porosity; the Charles Formation is dominated by [salts] and lacks permeability.

3. The Madison Group is the primary oil-producing interval in the Williston Basin.  Again, this report was published in 2005.

4. In the Powder River Basin, the Madison is not subdivided, and the equivalent stratigraphic unit is called the Madison limestone. 

Key members of the PCO2R partnership that contributed to this report include Julie A. LeFever, North Dakota Geological Survey; Richard D. LeFever, UND, Geology/Geological Engineering; Lynn D. Helms, North Dakota Industrial Commission; as well as Fischer, Smith, Peck, Sorensen, Steadman and Harju of the EERC.

On another note: here are ways investors can play the CCS game.