Mike Filloon on Newfield, BEXP, and the Bakken -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here.

If I [Mike Filloon] were to be apprehensive about Newfield's Bakken results, it would not be on the cost per well as much as how much difficulty it has had getting wells on line, which created a large miss in production. This company's earnings release statements lead me to believe Newfield thinks this will be an ongoin problem, but if it is smart it will take the rest of 2011 to work on well infrastructure to get pipelines on line. Trucking fluids in and out of wells in the Bakken, was very difficult for most of the winter.

That's exactly right: I have been blogging this since July. It's not the cost of the well; it's the fact that the well sits there for eight months before it's completed. That's a lot of money tied up. The fracking backlog is devastating to the bottom line.

I don't think it's the trucking problem in the winter that is as big a problem as the fracking backlog, unless of course, hauling water for fracking is part of the equation. Some of the winter production problem will be mitigated this year with all the infrastructure they've been putting in.

Looks like a big shake-out coming down the road.