Idle Chatter, Thoughts On Four Operators In The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

I'm not in the mood to re-write this, so I will simply cut and paste a note I sent to a friend yesterday after noting the IP of a CLR Bakken (Three Forks formation) well near the Canadian border north of Tioga; (30 stages; 4 million lbs sand and ceramics).

Consider this idle chatter, the kind of talk one might hear at the Economart in Williston, nothing more, nothing less, and not very sophisticated.

So, here goes at great risk to my credibility (smile):

Even before your question about geographical location of CLR's Running well that had an IP of 42, I was thinking about the following.

Some idle chatter about the four companies I "know" most about (which probably isn't very much):

1. CLR may have the most acreage, and most wells, but a lot of "wildcatting" (not in the strict definition), still sorting out what they got. Short term, not stellar, but long term they will have a boatload of producing wells. It almost seems like CLR has a very long-term outlook; almost as much research-oriented as business-oriented.

2. WLL -- using their Sanish as a cash cow. Drilling the heck out of the Sanish -- 4 - 6 wells in each section; way more than what others are doing elsewhere at this point. Maxing cash flow now; using cash to wildcat/explore the edges of the Three Forks in southwest North Dakota.

3. OAS:  also like WLL -- they seem to be maxing out their good property -- drilling the heck out of the best acreage they have. I think it's going to be even more obvious this year.

4. KOG: would like to do what OAS is doing but I just don't get the feeling that they can execute the way OAS is executing, and I wonder if OAS lucked out with better acreage, despite the incredibly good KOG acreage in the reservation.

CLR seems to be willing to spend money looking for new areas; WLL is spending cash it gets from the Sanish to see what it has in the Three Forks; OAS is not wasting money looking for what they might have; they are just drilling the heck out of their good property. KOG, I don't know.

I could have added this. I assume CLR is looking for the edges of the Three Forks with its Running well near the Canadian border, but that was an expensive  look.