Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Leasing Starts on the Tyler Formation -- North Dakota, USA

Updates


Comment: As noted in a subsequent post, the quote "more than 100 wells have been drilled into the Tyler producing more than 200 million barrels of oil" is obviously incorrect. The correct figure is closer to 20 million barrels of oil, giving a EUR of 200,000/well.

Comment: "Infrequently used drilling method."  -- does the reporter mean that vertical wells are infrequent in North Dakota in the current boom; or that horizontal wells are infrequently used prior to current boom; or what is the reporter trying to say? That's a rhetorical question; I don't expect an answer. Bottom line: I think we will see vertical stratigraphic wells first, and then horizontal wells.

Comment: I was told that the geology of the area is more complicated than the Bakken in that is the Tyler reservoir could be meandering. That is, they could strike oil in one location, but half-a-mile away, no oil, but then they would strike oil another half-a-mile away.  With vertical wells, one could completely miss a reservoir; with a two mile lateral, only one mile of the lateral might actually go through the reservoir, if I understand the geology as sent to me.

Original Post

Wow, wow, wow.

Leasing begins on the Tyler formation.

Here we go.
*****

Tyler formation:
  • Shallower than the Bakken.
  • "Tight" formation, requiring similar drilling technology as used in the Bakken.
  • Source rock and reservoir rock may be the same.
  • Source rock is separate from the Bakken source rock (this is huge).
  • The Tyler formation reserves may be half the size of the Bakken.
  • Harold Hamm suggested the Bakken could hold as much as 10 billion recoverable barrels; does that mean the Tyler could hold upwards of 3 to 5 billion (just a rhetorical question; don't answer) 
  • Spokesman says more than 100 wells have been drilled into the Tyler producing more than 200 million barrels of oil: that's a EUR of 2 million barrels
And then this cryptic sentence in the Dickinson Press article:
[Lynn] Helms [NDIC/Director] said no horizontal wells have been drilled in the Tyler, only vertical, an infrequently used drilling method.


6 comments:

  1. Just went over one of my well reports. At first I thought they were not gathering information on this area but they are. Most drillers look at the ratcliff as a potential area (possibly vertical well.) Looking at the report I saw the shale and gas shows were increasing in the Tyler. Looking on line I noticed that slope county has the thickest layer of tyler about 100 feet with the west of dunn being 55 feet. I think a study of depth and temperature coupled with thickness will open up which areas will have the strongest potential. This should be another interesting addition to the basins production potential.

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  2. Bri-VA,

    Thank you for posting. I've been looking for more data regarding the Tyler. Personally, I think this is huge, especially since it extends the activity farther south in the state.

    From another e-mailer, I learned that most likely that Slope County and Hettinger County will be the first to see Tyler activity.

    I noted that in the four ND lease sales this year, leases in Hettinger and Slope counties were sold only in the August sale (no Hettinger or Slope in the other three sales this year).

    One of the first questions needed to be answered, was how thick was the payzone, so I really appreciate your input.

    Someone suggested the wells in the Rocky Ridge field might have targeted the Tyler. According to the NDIC "well search" page, two Rocky Ridge wells, still active, have a status date of 1971 and 1977.

    People talk about IPs, but it's the annual production and EUR that really matters, so it's amazing to see these wells still active with status dates back to the 70s regarding which formation they targeted.

    Quite exciting, thanks.

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  3. Our family has not seen leasing activity for about 15 years, and we were recently approached for specific tracts. Seems like the offers are all over the board. Any one know of current lease offers that they are willing to share?

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  4. Tyler (Heath) is always looked at. Yes there is potential there.There is Tyler prod in the state. One obstacle is that it is heavy oil so getting it to market when capacity is full of gold grade Bakken.The Tyler Heath did need to be (mini fraced)in vertical wells.

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  5. Very interesting about the quality of oil. And you are correct about takeaway capacity being a problem.

    A couple days ago I posted that if the monthly production continues to increase at 4% (current rate), one year from now ND will have much more oil production than takeaway capacity, even with projected pipeline additions. And my gut feeling is that monthly production will increase by more than 4% next year. They're putting in a lot of wells.

    It certainly looks like Whiting is getting aggressive based on all the permits, recently, and, of course, CLR has 20 rigs.

    Thank you for commenting. I was not aware of the "Heath" nomenclature, but now I see it on the strat map.

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  6. With regard to leasing activity question (up above), you might have better luck going to the Bakken Shale Discussion Group where there are lots of folks who might help you out. The link is on the right sidebar, in the "Commentary" group of links. The first one in that group is "Bakken Shale Discussion Group."

    I will put your question up front as a stand-alone post so folks see it.

    ReplyDelete

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