Twelve (12) New Permits -- Incredible Wells Being Reported -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Perhaps it is just one of those things, but the number of new permits these past two days is striking: eleven yesterday and now twelve today.

Drillers: Burlington Resources (4), Continental (4), Whiting (2), Slawson, Murex.

Fields: Big Bend, Haystack Butte, Sand Creek, Stoneview, Willmen, Sanish, Beaver Lodge, and Zenith.

The four CLR wells will be on an Eco-Pad in Stoneview field, Divide County. Stoneview is a most irregular (and fairly large) oil field about 18 miles north of Tioga; very active in previous booms, it has been "quietly" active in this boom.

Whiting's two permits follow a Whiting pattern: one permit in its cash cow, the Sanish oil field, and a second permit in one of their "new" areas, in this case, the Lewis and Clark prospect, the Zenith oil field which is turning out to be very, very interesting.

The Murex permit is in Beaver Lodge, the oldest oil field in the Williston Basin.

Along with these new permits, there were three huge wells (based on IPs) reported on today's daily activity report:

• 19110, 2,849, Newfield, Malm 149-98-14-23-1H,
• 19513, 4,661, BEXP, Sorenson 29-32-2-H,
• 19756, 1,269, Whiting, Guinn Trust 11-13TFH

The Sorenson 29-32-2-H was previously reported; it set a BEXP record, supplanting its sister well as the well with the largest IP.