First came the Barnett, followed by the Fayetteville and Woodford. Then came the Haynesville and Marcellus, followed by the Eagle Ford.Technically I guess they are correct, the Williston Basin Bakken boom started in 2000 on the Montana side of the border (before 2005). To the best of my knowledge, the first four mentioned are gas plays (for the most part) while the Eagle Ford is more like the Bakken, primarily an oil play (again to the best of my knowledge). If they are going to mention the Eagle Ford, they need to mention the Bakken. Just saying.
The big shale plays that transformed the onshore oil and gas sector after 2005 resemble a hydrocarbon musical parade of hits.
So, the three "new" fields under discussion in the linked article:
- Mississippi Lime(stone) in Kansas
- Niobrara in Colorado and Wyoming
- Utica in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York (though New York seems to deny reality)
While the Niobrara is early in the delineation phase, operators face tough geological puzzles. The play features lower reservoir pressures and steep production declines, which are offset by lower well costs because of the shallow nature of the formation at 6,000 to 8,000 feet.I don't get too excited about the "shallow nature" of the formation at 6,000 to 8,000 feet. Yes, the Bakken is about 9,000 to 10,000 feet but in the big scheme of things, I just can't get too excited about the delta. The experience of the geologists and the roughnecks, and the infrastructure, are much more important.
Higher oil prices are necessary to make the play work at this time.
At the end of the day, right now, the Eagle Ford is the Bakken's biggest competitor. I think the Kansas play will be very exciting to follow but I don't yet see it as a major competitor to the Bakken. We'll see.
The Mississippian Lime looks like a good play from what I have heard. A colleague of mine is a drilling engineer for a small company that started in the play last year and they expect to have good return on their investment. They are doing shorter laterals and the well costs were around 3-6 million depending on completions. Expected IP's were around 300-500ish bbl per day and a slower decline rate than the Bakken. The logs I have seen/taken of this companies exploratory wells shows really good porosity and resistivity, signs of a possibly good reservoir.
ReplyDeleteYes, I have to agree. The Niobrara was a big story, but seemed to die down when reality set in.
DeleteSomething tells me the Mississippi Lime will be different -- as you noted. Thank you for taking time to comment.
Sand Ridge has a huge position in Kansas' Mississippi Lime play.
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