Thursday, October 27, 2011

Trending in the Bakken -- Drilling Deeper in the Three Forks Formation -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

This was touched on briefly but needs to be re-emphasized as more and more folks are asking how many wells can be drilled on a spacing unit.

Whiting and Continental Resources provide nice graphics in their presentations. This information comes from the August, 2011, CLR presentation.

This is where CLR is with regard to this issue, slide 9:
  • their first ECO-Pad well pair: a Middle Bakken horizontal and an Upper Three Forks 1st Bench horizontal
  • the slide, interestingly enough, shows a dialogue box with "multiple fracture stages with a 500' stimulation radius"
  • CLR is currently drilling horizontals into the Three Forks 2nd Bench -- 1st test drilling
  • in the future, CLR plans to test the Three Forks 3rd Bench and the Three Forks 4th Bench.
CLR has interests throughout the Bakken.

Some of their ECO-Pad results, average IP for four (4) wells):
  • Glasoe/Raymo, 940: east Divide county, near Burke; north of Williston
  • Kennedy/Miles, 1,377: northeast McKenzie county; ground zero for 2012 activity; the bull's eye
  • Arthur/Hegler 1, 1,088: northwestern Dunn county
  • Bridger/Bonneville, 745: northwestern Dunn county
  • Carson Peak/Morris, 1,948, northwestern Dunn county
Northeastern McKenzie County and east-central McKenzie County will be where the action is in 2012;
Northwestern Dunn County is just south and east of that area

In Montana, it appears CLR is emphasizing northeastern Richland, directly west of Alexander, Watford City area:
  • Rognas 2-22H, 1,013
  • Tolksdorf 1-1H, 642
  • Big Sky 3-35H, 1,163
  • Clayton 3-20H, 1,118
  • Amestoy 1-6H, 836
  • Earl 2-25H, 1,024
  • David 2-20H, 831
In this area, CLR has twelve (12) wells planned -- I guess CLR's Montana motto will be " 12 in '12"