Fracking Backlog / Delays in the Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Generally speaking one can assume that a Bakken horizontal can reach total depth (TD) in less than 30 days. Within a couple of days of reaching TD, the company should be able to frack the well, and once that is complete, bring the equipment to the pad to determine the 24-hour flowback or start calculating the IP.

As a rule of thumb, in my mind, any delta greater than 60 days between spud date and test date in a Bakken horizontal represents a delay due to fracking backlog. There might be one exception: on Eco-Pads, or Smart Pads, where there are four or more wells per pad, drillers may wait to report the IP or the 24-hour flowback until all wells are completed and tested. In that case, the first well could be spud up to three or four months before the last well reached TD. Of course there are other mitigating factors: a) company policy; and, b) weather. With regard to the first, some companies don't frack during the winter, and. of course, we all know how the horrendous weather this past winter affected Bakken operations. It should also be noted that an occasional well is not fracked; and, for various reasons, a company may purposely delay fracking.

One can also assume that the "smaller" (in terms of number of rigs) drillers will have a greater delay  on average in getting their wells fracked than the larger drillers. The larger drillers now have dedicated frack crews.

Today, first example:

• 19146, 988, Hess, Little Chase Creek 21-1H, Little Knife, Bakken; spudded 10/28/10; tested 2/8/10 -- a delta of 3.5 months. It should be noted that January/February, 2011, was notable for horrendous weather in North Dakota, and it's amazing that anything got done. I wouldn't read much into this delta.