Whiting: 15 Wells in 3 1280-Acre Spacing Units: Room For More? -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Periodically I enjoy taking a look at a random spot on the NDIC GIS map server to see what is going on.

It's been a long time since I've looked at the Sanish oil field, one of the two best fields in the Bakken (the other being the Parshall oil field) and so I thought I would take some time and look at it today.

There are still nine (9) active rigs in the Sanish today, just as there were back in November, 2010.

The number of long laterals in the Sanish is astounding. As an example, Whiting has a string of ten producing wells and five permits in block of six sections (5, 6, 7, 8, 17, 18) in T153N-R91W. These fifteen pads run in a north-south line (technically there are two more, but their laterals run in the opposite direction, away from these six sections).

This is the status of these 15 wells / permits (updated June 10, 2012):

• 18804, 1,561, TTT Ranch 4-6TFH, cum 134 4/12;
• 17603, 2,825, TTT Ranch 11-6H, cum 335K 4/12; 
• 20374, 980, Troy TTT 12-6TFH, t8/1; cum 31K 4/12;
• 18297, 2,762, TTT Ranch 12-6H, t3/10, cum 282K 4/12;
• 18876, 3,023, Rohde 14-6XH, t8/10, cum 226K 4/12;
• 17133, 2,195, Smith 11-7H, t8/09, cum 254K 4/12;
  
• 20041, conf, Merilyn Smith 12-7TFH;
• 18392, 2,530, Smith 12-7H, t3/10; cum 222K 4/12;
• 18853, 1,485, Moore 14-7XH, t7/10; cum 162K 4/12;
• 16852, 1,765, Abbott 11-18H, t6/08, cum 332K 4/12;
• 19992, 1,181, Marmon 11-18TFH, t8/11; cum 36K 4/12;
• 18500, 1,073, Marmon 12-18TFH; t8/10, cum 24K 4/12;
• 17443, 1,663, Fladeland 12-18H, cum 308K 4/12;
• 20293, 425, Fladeland 13-18TFH, t7/11; cum 14K 4/12;
• 20227, 1,060, Fladeland 14-18WH, t7/11; cum 88K 4/12;

That's 15 locations in three 1280-acre spacing units.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations:

• If one multiples 3 x 1280 = 3840 acres
• 3840 acres/15 = 256 acre spacing (another way of looking at it)

According to Micheal Filloon in a piece this week about KOG, also in a very good Bakken area:

The story of the Bakken seems to be new techniques in the area. Some of the competitors have started offset drilling with 160 acre spacing, and are getting decent results. Kodiak claims these changes are making decent production increases in the area.

If one divides 3840 acres by 160 acres/well, one gets 24 wells. Obviously WLL has not mentioned any plans to go to 160-acre spacing in this area, but WLL has talked about as many as 8 wells in a 1280-acre spacing unit.

3 x 8 = 24.

So, using two different methods, one can arrive at the possibility of 24 wells where there are now 15 Whiting wells/permits.

I think it's very likely.