Random Note On A New Natural Gas Well In The Williston Basin

Updates

Later, 7:30 p.m.: See first comment:

The BTA Sharon well locates five miles southeast of a vertical hole Oxy USA drilled in January 2012 #21949, and 2 1/2 miles southeast of a newly permitted Oxy well (just yesterday 5-18-2012) the Tomahawk 28-141-93, #23171; a  horizontal hole which will drill through sections 28 and 33 of that township. [I am bringing the comment up to the body of the post, so the information is searchable. Comments are not readily searchable.] And then this, another comment: Four miles west of the Spring Creek #21949 OXY USA vertical hole, OXY USA has also permited the Thunderbird #22997 on May 29 2012 in 15-141-94. OXY has shown an inordinate amount of interest in this area after drilling this vertical hole and taking core samples.

So, all of a sudden, we have one of the largest, if not the largest, crew camp in North Dakota going up in the Dickinson area; we have a successful BTA natural gas well (how successful, yet to be determined), and at least a couple more OXY wells in the immediate area. OXY has suggested they have better prospects outside North Dakota in their conference calls. Tantalizing.

Original Post

It's funny how things work out.

For the past few days I have had a lot of posts regarding natural gas, wet and dry. I never understood the natural gas industry (not that I understand the oil industry -- smile) and no matter how hard I tried, I never seemed to get a handle on it. Then a reader sent me a note yesterday (?) explaining it in simple terms that even I could understand. At least on some level, it now makes sense to me. Hold that thought.

Earlier this morning I posted the results of the wells that came off the confidential list today. One of those wells was BTA's Sharon well:

• 21235, 0, BTA Oil, Sharon 1, Winnipeg pool, wildcat, t2/12; cum 0 4/12; (no typos) - more to follow.

From the notes: "(no typos) - more to follow" it was obvious I was surprised by a "dry" well, and an unusual formation.

Fortunately, a reader wrote to tell me this is a vertical, natural gas well:

... it was a vertical gas well. A huge gas flare lit up the sky for many days here, and rumor is that its being hooked up to an MDU gas pipeline.

This well is located 4 miles north of Taylor, North Dakota, population 148 in 2010 census. It is It is part of the Dickinson Micropolitan Statistical Area. The well is about 15 miles northeast of Dickinson. Interestingly there is almost no activity in this area except two other vertical wells:

• 20061, drl (don't hold your breath), Oil for America's Lodgepole well, Dohrmann 13-1, spud 12/2/10
• 20195, drl (don't hold your breath), Oil for America's Lodgepole well, Dohrmann 14-1, spud 12/22/10

Unless I'm missing something, this well is, perhaps, opening up another play in the Williston Basin.

The Bakken is not often thought to be a "gas field," but rather an oilfield. [I could be wrong, but I believe Montana has a number of oil fields where MDU is very, very active. It seems I recall that is where the majority of their natural gas assets are. But I digress.] So, it never crossed my mind that this was a natural gas well. Then, tie this into the fact that most feel natural gas is not economical at this point.

It turns out that the Bakken is relatively wet liquid rich, and that is economical.

At this point, it might be helpful to refer back to two earlier posts:

• Can "we" handle the flood?
• The Duvernay Shale in Canada

The first link will link to a couple of other links.

The second link will take you to a story about a Canadian gas field that seems completely unrelated to the Bakken. Read that post, but forget about the Canadian aspect of the post. Read about the remarks concerning dry gas, wet gas, and condensates. This will help explain the BTA Sharon well.

Production of the Sharon well to date per the NDIC site:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
WINNIPEG	4-2012	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
WINNIPEG	3-2012	1	0	0	0	1636	0	1636
WINNIPEG	2-2012	5	0	0	0	20509	0	20509

Note that the well is no longer flaring. Two points to make. Obviously if this was a natural gas well, they would have had a pipeline in place, ready to go, or other method on-site to capture the gas (although I can't imagine what).

Second point: More and more often I am noting how quickly even oil wells report no flaring; the operators are working hard to get their wells attached to a natural gas pipeline as quickly as possibly. When looking at these NDIC production tables, "0" in the last column is a good news. However, "0" in the fourth column for an oil well is not good news.

As long as I'm rambling, the second clue that this was not an oil well, there was no water returned. Most oil wells will have some water and fracked wells will have a huge amount of water the first month as the frack water is vomited back to the surface. For oil wells, water needs to be trucked away and that's an added cost; the less water produced by an oil well, the better. Hopefully, I'm not confusing folks talking about natural gas, water, and oil, in the same paragraph.