Pad Being Prepared; Road in Place; But No Evidence of a Permit -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

I don't follow preparations for individual wells at all, so I can only conjecture what is going on.

A gentleman writes to tell me that he has been told that Whiting has indicated that they are preparing the pad, have a road in place, and will spud November 8 (in about five days). The well will be in section 8-T153N-R93W, the Sanish field. The lease has been signed. He was also told that the well will be in "full production" by January.

If I lived in the area, I would go out and check, but I don't, so I can't.

But neither the ESER map nor the NDIC GIS map server shows any permitted location in that section. If this is all accurate, it suggests that Whiting is moving ahead with plans assuming a permit will be issued. Both the ESER map and the GIS map server can be a few weeks behind, so it's possible the permit has been issued but is not yet reflected on either map.

The Whiting nomenclature is easy. The last number, the one preceding the "H" (if it's a horizontal) designates the section that the well will sit in. I've gone through my database and don't see any such section "8" for a new Whiting well that matches this description.

So, I'm stumped. If all the data is correct, all I can say is that Whiting is preparing to spud with the expectation that they will have a permit in hand in the next week or so.

If they do spud in early November, I find it unlikely that they will be in full production by January based on fracking backlogs, but it is possible that Whiting has designated this well to be fracked immediately.

Bottom line: many unknowns.