Some Interesting Tidbits From Whiting's 2Q11 Conference Call -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Whiting thinks their Lewis and Clark prospect in southwestern North Dakota could be equal to two or three "Sanishes."

Their Lewis and Clark prospect has up to 250 1280-acre units. 

WLL still has 2.5 years of drilling inventory in the Sanish. WLL's Lewis and Clark prospect is about three times larger than the Sanish. Take a look at the NDIC GIS map server, click on "Find Well" on the left side menu, and type in "Sanish." Take a look at how WLL has developed that field, imagine 2.5 years of more drilling (WLL has seven rigs in the Sanish), and then imagine that same activity in the much larger Lewis and Clark.

"It's all about the rock" -- whether one uses sliding sleeves (SS) or plug and perf (PP) doesn't matter with regard to outcome. But one method is much quicker and much less expensive.

WLL thinks it can get the cost of its well in its Lewis and Clark prospect down to $5.5 million by using DWOP process (drawing wells on paper).

With the new technology WLL is reaching total depth in less than fifteen (15) days --

At one point, the CEO was very, very emphatic (the audio is much, much better than the transcript here):

To try to summarize for you, in terms of what we think on average across the play, I'm going to give you a range, 300,000 to 500,000 BOEs per well and about a $6 million well cost. So roughly somewhere between $18 million and $24 million of future net for a $6 million well cost. I think that will be the range across the play. And by God, I think that's one of the best plays going on in the United States today.

Payout: a typical Three Forks well at 400,000 BOEs , with about a 92% IRR, a 1.2 year payout, about 3.2:1 on investment at $90 WTI.

More from the CEO:

But Lewis & Clark, we believe, is a home run and maybe 3 home runs, i.e., 3 times as big as Sanish. So we're highly optimistic about it, because the economics are great. The only thing I can say is maybe it'll average more like 3, 3.5:1, than the 4 or 5:1s that we were getting on our money early on in the little Bakken development at Sanish, but those are great results. In fact, the oil prices are going up and helping us. We also still, in our opinion, going to pay out in somewhere between just under 1 year and 2 years across that 300,000 to 500,000 BOE EUR range. So I'm telling you, it's the best play I've seen in my now almost 40 years in this business.

It's a very long post, but lots of information, and much of it near the end of the post. If it interests you, listen to the conference call (I believe conference calls only stay up for a limited amount of time) or read the transcript when/if it comes out.

Yup, we're still in the early innings.

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For folks interested in reading about Whiting's "discovery well" in their Lewis and Clark prospect, click here. 

On November 25, 2009, the Federal 32-4HBKCE flowed 1,835 barrels of oil and 811 thousand cubic feet (Mcf) of gas per day or 1,970 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) per day during a 24-hour test of the Three Forks formation at a vertical depth of 10,530 feet. The initial 24-hour production rate was gauged on a 28/64-inch choke with a flowing casing pressure of 700 pounds per square inch (psi). The well was fracture stimulated in 15 stages, all using sliding sleeve technology. Whiting holds a working interest of 84% and a net revenue interest of 71% in the Federal well.

The Federal 32-4HBKCE was a re-entry well (to the best of my knowledge); it is the oldest permit in my database; #15412, to granted to Equity Oil on March 28, 2003. To date (through May, 2011), that well has produced 54,000 bbls of oil from the Birdbear, and 125,000 bbls from the Bakken pool. It continues to produce at 4,500 bbls/month and the decline curve has leveled off significantly.