Updates
December 7, 2012: Additional comments on the importance of CLR's well successfully targeting the third bench of the Three Forks. (Link to KX News; regional links break often, break early.)
Alison Ritter with ND Oil and Gas can't confirm or deny the news because it's a confidential well.
But she says if oil is being recovered from the third bench.
There were wells at certain points in history, the EOG well in 2006 and the Brigham well in 2009 that when you look back yes those were historical breakthroughs.
Did we know how big at the time? Maybe a little bit. Could this Continental well be something like that? You never know but there certainly is that potential there that two or three years from now we look back and say that Continental well really told us something about what was going on with the Three Forks," says Alison Ritter with North Dakota Oil & Gas.December 6, 2012: Oil and Gas Journal picks up on the CLR story -- increasing estimates of the Bakken by 57%.
Original Post
Well, sort of official:a) 903 billion -- I round that to one trillionBut all the same: link to Bloomberg here.
b) the source, Continental Resources, may be a bit biased
Continental Resources Inc. (CLR), the largest owner of oil-drilling rights in the U.S. Bakken Shale, said the formation holds about 57 percent more crude than previously thought. The shares rose the most in more than three months.
The formation beneath North Dakota and Montana holds the equivalent of 903 billion barrels of so-called oil in place, compared with the company’s 2010 estimate of 577 billion, Oklahoma City-based Continental said in a statement today.
The Bakken’s potential expanded after the company was the first to successfully tap a deeper geological layer of the Three Forks zone, according to the statement. The breakthrough at the Charlotte 3-22H well represents the second exploration triumph in as many months for Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Harold Hamm.
The company announced a discovery known as the South Central Oklahoma Oil Province, or SCOOP, on Oct. 9 that may add 1.8 billion barrels to Continental’s reserves in coming years.Regular readers know we've talked about a trillion-barrel reservoir for quite some time.
Hi Bruce,
ReplyDeleteAgree, this is a well that folks will look back at as being a significant milestone.
Speaking of milestones, an additional data point that I heard earlier this week was with respect to two Newfield wells, located on the east side of Watford City. Those wells are both middle Bakken wells, and are located only ~600 feet apart. The first well actually started producing more once the second well was fracked. Both appear to be good wells.
It will be fun to watch and see how the Continental Resources experiment turns out where they are going to put 4 wells in a single layer spaced at ~600 feet.
Wow, huge comment. Thank you. I think you are exactly correct:
Deletehttp://www.milliondollarwayblog.com/2012/12/random-look-at-production-of-older-well.html
Again, thank you for taking time to comment.