Continental Resources: Up to Seven Wells in One 640-Acre Spacing Unit -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

NDIC Hearing Dockets, Wednesday, February 21, 2011

• Case 14121: Continental Resources requests permission to drill not more than seven (7) wells in a 640-acre spacing unit, section 2-T152N-R94W, Antelope field, Bakken pool.

So, what if anything is going on in that section? Section 2-T152N-R94W?

It turns out Continental Resources already has two short lateral producing wells in that section:

• 17640, 380, Mack 1-2H, NWNW 2-152-94, Three Forks (Sanish)
• 19115, 609, Mack 2-2H, NWNW 2-152-94, Middle Bakken

These two wells sit 315 feet from each other in that section.

Continental Resources is requesting permission to drill not more than seven (7) wells in this section. I assume that means up to five (5) more wells.

The first Mack well was spud on January 17, 2009; IP date was three months later, March 29, 2009. As of December 31, 2010 (24 months of production), the well has produced 77K bbls of oil.  The first Mack well targeted the Three Forks formation.  Fracture specifics not known.

The second Mack well was spud on July 23, 2010; IP date was October 1, 2010. As of December 31, 2010, (four months of production), the well has produced 36K bbls of oil. Fracked but unknown number of stages. The second Mack well targeted the middle Bakken.

The two horizontals are parallel with each other and have a separation of about 740 feet laterally.

I do not recall these two wells were presented as evidence that the Bakken and Three Forks do not communicate.  Those wells were the Mathistad wells, and I believe, if my memory serves me well, the Omar and Bice wells.

CLR has two similar wells in section 3 of the same township, one mile west, but those two are long laterals, #18909 and #18159.

Back of the envelope calculations:

1. If Bakken and Sanish wells have EURs in the 500,000 barrel range, and these seven wells each have an EUR of 500,000, that would mean that a single section in the Antelope field could have a total EUR of 7 x 500,000 = 3.5 million recoverable barrels of oil using current technology.

2. It is interesting that I opined some time ago that based on how far fracturing seemed to be effective, one could put up to six wells in one section. A section is generally 1 mile by 1 mile or 5,280 feet by 5,280 feet. One can get six laterals with 740 foot spacing in one section. There are two formations currently being targeted in the core sections, the Bakken and the Three Forks. That could work out to twelve (12) horizontals in each section.

I am not really suggesting this; just fiddling with numbers. In fact, to even think this, one has to be truly irrationally exuberant about the Bakken.

Then, again, Harold Hamm opines that there are 24 billion barrels of recoverable oil from the Bakken/Three Forks compared to only an estimated five billion or so based on the 2008 USGS survey.