This gives me an opportunity to note the waste in 640-acre spacing.
Study the Parshall field at the NDIC GIS map server.
Take any two horizontals in the Parshall field that are in "kitty-corner" sections, in which the northwestern well is sited in the far northwest corner of the section, and then proceeds at a 45-degree angle to the southeast, ending short of the section line. Then go to the far southeastern section of the "kitty-corner" section, to note the well sited in the far southeast corner of the section, and the horizontal ending short of section line.
Now, using the "distance" application, note that the horizontals are almost exactly one mile long.
Now, using the "distance" application, note that the ends of the horizontals, or the "toes" as they are referred to, are almost exactly 0.6 miles from each other.
Also note that the wells themselves are offset from the section line, resulting in another 250 to 500 feet of lost horizontal potential.
Larger spacing units, even 1280-acre spacing, eliminates much of this waste. 2580-acre spacing will eliminate even more and at the end of the day (twenty years from now), it will make a huge difference. It all adds up -- the waste. Compare the amount of "waste" in the Parshall field with its 640-acre spacing and the Sanish field with its 1280-acre spacing.
This is not trivial. If one searches "decimal" on the Bakken Shale Discussion Group, one will find the following comments not atypical:
I believe my decimal interest is 0.00551020 so we are really curious what we could expect from this well in the future.Mineral owners concerned about the decimal figure out to the 7th or 8th place, should certainly be concerned about "their" horizontal well missing 40 to 50% of its potential. If these were straws going into pools of liquid, it would not matter, but Bakken wells are going into sand that requires fracking for oil to be released.
At least that's how some see it. This is not an original thought with me. Others have expressed the same thing. I polled readers of MDW on this issue some time ago and the results were interesting.
Continental will test 320 and 160, with multiple horizons.
ReplyDeleteFrom CLR data, I think 160 is too wide. Maybe 100 or so is right.
EOG is blowing smoke, pretending to be testing doubtful spacing. Nuts.
They are busy elsewhere, going slow in ND.
Anon 1
Yes, I think EOG is focused on the Eagle Ford, or places I am unaware of.
DeleteEOG has all of 47 permits so far this calendar year (2012) in the Williston Basin. Petro-Hunt has almost 100 new permits and is aggressively pursuing multiple-well pads.
Didn't CLR figure with MB & TF1 @320 spacing it would take around 50,000 wells to fully develop the Bakken. Drop that to 160 acres (still to wide?) and go to 5 levels that would be 250,000 wells!
ReplyDeleteThat is like 90,000 more wells than are producing in the state of Texas right now where there are currently over 800 rigs drilling.
I could see when these companies get into development mode it would be easy to overwhelm the fragile status of take away infrastructure. I think I heard someone say during CLRs Investors day that within 3 years ND or maybe WB could be producing 2 million barrels a day.
It will be interesting to follow.
Delete1. Enbridge has said a new large-capacity Bakken pipeline is needed; posted previously; 200,000 bopd, I believe. This would not be a big deal to do; ENB already has the easements and if neighboring states were resistant, they could just tie the large capacity pipeline into their existing pipelines farther north.
2. The crude-by-rail industry is scalable. Very scalable. From nothing to 16 terminals right now.
3. Keystone XL 2.0 will be approved.
4. I don't envision the rig number ever increasing much more than what it is now. Bigger, more effective rigs will be enough to manage the pad drilling.
5. Also, winter really has a way of slowing things down for three months, allowing folks to re-group, re-attack, and re-impress.
We will see soon how the two EOG philosophies pan out in Spotted Horn. We have interest in Unit of Sec.8,17,19,20 150-94 in which 6 long laterals are permitted with 3 already drilled. Next to our interest they are drilling multiple short laterals from one pad in in unit 16-21. I'm glad ours are long laterals, but one other positive in having EOG is that they are able to get LLC prices by shipping by train to St. James - this always seems to be $10-15 higher than WTI!!!!!
ReplyDelete