Ten (10) New Permits -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA

Daily activity report, June 8, 2012 --

• Operators:  KOG (4), Slawson (3), MRO, North Plains Energy
• Fields: Midway (Williams), Van Hook (Mountrail), Murphy Creek (Dunn), Elm Tree (McKenzie), Stockyard Creek (Williams), Epping (Williams)

Timing is interesting. I updated Big Bend field today which is "owned" by Slawson, and now, after being relatively quiet, Slawson has three more permits, including two in Elm Creek. It was back in May, 2010, that I said that Elm Tree would eventually see some action. It took longer than I thought.

KOG's permits are for wells in Epping and Stockyard Creek fields. Stockyard Creek is one of my favorite fields because of the my memories associated with it east of Williston. It turns out that it is one of the more active fields.

MRO's permits are in the Murphy Creek oil field. There are several different operators working this field, and many wells are approaching three and four years: allows one to start comparing results of different operators over time.

Four wells released from "tight hole" status:

• 20266, no data, SM Energy, Wold 15-33H,
• 20782, 577, Enerplus, Cedar 148-94 12D-01-4H,
• 21760, no data, Hess, CA-Halverson-154-95-0409H-1,
• 21785, no data, Enerplus, Jackal 149-93-31A-30-1H,

Interesting: 3 of 4 wells not completed. Fracking backlog resolved?