For Newbies: A Look at the Sanish

Folks new to the Bakken may be interested in looking at the Sanish oil field. The original post was written back in February, 2010, but I have updated much of it. I believe the IPs are all updated; I may have missed a few.

Before the current boom, folks got excited about an IP of 300 barrels/day in the Williston Basin. But soon after drillers cracked the code on horizontal drilling and increased fracture stages, they started hitting some big wells in the Bakken, going from IPs of 500 to 1,000.

There has been much discussion about "inflated IPs" and how much they mean, but it's hard to argue with IPs of 2,000 or greater.

Newbies might want to look at the IPs in the Sanish, an oil field pretty much owned by Whiting.

Folks familiar with the Bakken have pretty much become numb to these 4-figure IPs. It should be noted that Whiting is targeting two formations in the Sanish: the Bakken and the Three Forks Sanish. A single "H" in the name suggests a Bakken formation well; a "TFH" in the name means the Three Forks formation.