How Many Wells Can You Squeeze Into a Section?

Out here in the suburbs of Los Angeles, specifically along the coast and in the municipalities of San Pedro, Long Beach, and Huntington Beach, one can find pumpers among residential communities. One will find one, two, and sometimes, even three, pumpers hidden behind a tall brick fence covered with foliage. These pumpers have been here for decades; I remember seeing them back in the 1970's when I went to school out here. Off and on over the years, the pumpers were sometimes pumping, sometimes dormant. Right now, all of them are pumping. It's quite interesting to see. I would assume many of these are strippers now, pumping less than 50 barrels / day, but that's $3500 at the wellhead per day for something that probably costs a few dollars to operate.

But I digress.

What I really wanted to talk about was the number of wells that Whiting is going to squeeze into its leases in the Sanish. Check out Case 12695 that was added to the NDIC Hearing Docket scheduled for Friday, May 28: Whiting is requesting fifteen (15) 1280-acre spacing units in the heart of the Sanish where it already has two long laterals per two sections. The townships affected are: 153-93, 152-92, 153-92, and 154-92, 152-91, 153-91, 154-91, and 153-90.

Whiting's "big" Bakken wells are in this area: IPs in the range of 1,500 to 2,500. (Yes, "we've" discussed the issue of IPs before, but I don't think Whiting is drilling to lose money.)

Update: after posting the above, I ran across this discussion thread -- BEXP will also be putting in as many as four wells in each 1280-acre spacing unit due to poor permeability in the Bakken. This explains why fracking is so important, and it also suggests that fracking is very limited in geographical reach -- perhaps my 400-foot reach is too optimistic. Will EOR (CO2 injection) be the real key to success once all those wells are in place? Wouldn't it be ironic if CO2 production (a "greenhouse gas") keeps America hooked on oil? Will there be enough CO2 to stimulate all those oil fields? Smile. One can only hope. Is CO2 injection a one-time shot, or is it continuous? Is there going to be a whole new pipeline industry developed for CO2 injection. (As a reminder: the science for global warming due to man-made CO2 production has been debunked. This reminds me of Woody Allen's movie Sleeper in which after waking up after years of sleeping, it's been determined that smoking is good for one's health.)  When all the trees in the Amazon die because there's a relative dearth of CO2, then the government will pay us to generate CO2. Smile.