Others Talking About The Madison -- The Madison, North Dakota, USA

Elsewhere (this site is no longer accessible) folks are starting to talk about the Madison.

Important bit of information:

Madison oil is sour (sulfur): Enbridge will only ship sweet oil (Bakken) in its pipelines. Oil with sulfur is less desirable at the refineries. They will pay a premium for sweet oil (Bakken).

Having said that, the guys over at the Bakken Shale Discussion Group have picked up on a great well that I missed, when I updated the Renville oil field, Bottineau County:

• 15732, 25, Flatirons Resources, Stoa 41-1H, Lake Darling, Madison; twice; 2005 & 2010; cum 106K 9/14;

This is a real cool well with at least two instructive lessons:

Once the IP is reported, it is easy to forget about the well (unless one has a personal interest in it). This well, with an IP of 25 was as unremarkable as it could get.

Then, when "they" went back in with a workover, it got no press. In this case, they went in and drilled a fourth lateral.

Another lesson: 

Even a "bad" well early on can be turned into a "good" well and not be noticed (except by those with a particular interest).

In this case, this well was spud 2/23/05, produced for 28 days less than 800 bbls of oil. The was was "temporarily abandoned."  And abandoned for five years. Bad news? In December, 2010, five years later, a fourth later was drilled. In the first 50 days --> 10,000 bbls of oil, and in the past year, close to 50K bbls of oil. I don't know what it costs to put in a very short lateral that doesn't need fracking, but it can't be much compared to a Bakken long lateral.

They suggest that the price spread between ND sweet and ND sour is significant. Check out the prices at SemCrude: there is a difference (maybe 10 percent on the high side) but considering how much less expensive it is to drill a Madison compared to a Bakken, I don't consider the ND sweet/ND sour spread to be all that concerning.

Wow, I love to follow the Williston Basin and I have a lot of appreciation for the folks who ask the questions and provide the answers in the various discussion groups and provide comments to this blog.

Long-time followers of this blog are probably starting to see some themes that the "big guys" might be noticing in the Williston Basin. I have made a new comment at one of my top ten lists.

Hey, here's a random thought? I've been wondering why all the crude-by-rail interest, and why Enbridge would be moving into crude-by-rail. I think we got our answer: Madison, ND sour. Hmmmm.