Friday, May 18, 2012

Nine (9) New Permits -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA

Daily activity report, May 18, 2012 --

Operators: BR (5), Corinthian (2), EOG (2),
Fields: Clarks Creek (McKenzie), North Souris (Bottineau), Corral Creek (Dunn)

There were several well name changes. A couple were just due to incorrect spellings. But one suggested a new target:
  • 22872, loc, BEXP, Pyramid 15-22 4H (was Pyramid...4TFH).
It's hard to believe but no new IPs were reported.

Newbies should take a look at Corral Creek, linked above.

4 comments:

  1. http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/570316884.shtml

    Don’t bother checking the North Dakota Department of Minerals website for the list of Bakken Horizontal Wells by Producing Zone (www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/bakkenwells.asp) because it’s missing three of Slawson’s four Upper Bakken horizontal wells in — we assume (Slawson wouldn’t confirm) — the Squaw Gap field, all drilled and or completed in 2007-08.

    But if you check recent permits issued for new wells, you’ll see six new Squaw Gap wells on April 16.

    Squaw Gap dates back to the 1980s, possibly earlier, when vertical wells were the norm, but at that point Shell Oil was the operator; prior to Slawson taking over in 2003, it was Headington Oil.

    Company Vice President Craig Slawson was the first person to respond to a plea in Petroleum News Bakken’s first edition, April 15, 2012, asking for a geology lesson that would explain why the Bakken was referred to as a shale play.

    “You are correct that the vast majority of wells target the middle Bakken,” he wrote in an email.

    In a follow-up interview, he said, “Nobody in their right mind would target, would drill into, the upper or lower Bakken shale,” noting, “we aren’t right-minded.”

    Technically savvy Slawson Exploration is “the only company” that has targeted the Upper Bakken using horizontal wells, he said.

    And Craig Slawson is almost ready to talk publicly about what Slawson Exploration, a privately held family firm founded by his father, has been doing to entice the Upper Bakken shale to produce oil.

    Stay tuned.

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    Replies
    1. This is a great link/story. Thank you. I'll be posting it as a stand-alone. It's a huge story. Thank you.

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    2. Too much of a good thing?

      http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/63206600.shtml

      The Bakken alone is currently flaring 100 million cubic feet per day of natural gas because there is no way to move it off site, Van Leeuwen said.

      He said his research and consulting firm estimates U.S. unconventional plays, defined as shale areas where crude can only be extracted using horizontal drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing, hold 44 billion barrels of mostly light, sweet crude and 57 billion barrels of NGLs.

      Sarah Emerson, principal of Energy Security Analysts, said expansion of tight oil prospects could be hindered by how fast midstream assets are improved and how much heavy, sour crude enters the U.S. from Canada.

      She doubted the U.S. will even produce 9 million bpd of oil and NGLs “because the price of oil would probably be too low to warrant production.”

      “There’s a balance between what we can absorb as a country and what we can produce,” Emerson said, noting the challenges posed by U.S. Gulf Coast refineries that are primarily being set up to process increasing volumes of heavy sour crudes from the Middle East, Africa and Canada, while liquid fuels demand could steadily decline as consumers shift to renewable fuels.

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    3. This seems to be the topic du jour: midstream infrastructure. Thank you for a great link. Will post as a stand-alone.

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