Update on a Dry Gas Formation in the Williston Basin: the Ordovician Black Island Formation (Winnepeg Group)

Updates

December 28, 2012: this information was available at the time of the original post, but I wanted to place it here for easy access to this new 2012 well:

• 21235, 0, BTA Oil, Sharon #1, North Taylor oil field, a Winnipeg formation well, a dry gas well; 20K mcf the first month; this is not a "dry" well; the IP for oil was zero, but the IP for gas was 5,000 mcf. 

From a geologist's review:

Well #21235 is a recent dry gas discovery well and is inactive while awaiting a gas pipeline at the time of this publication. This will likely be a very productive well.

Original Post

Link here to a NDIC PDF file.

This is an excellent summary of the formation and includes some monster wells in North Dakota targeting this formation. I have also linked this study at the "Geology" tab at the top of the blog.

A big "thank you" to a reader for sending this in.

Note: This is a dry gas formation, found only in North Dakota and Saskatchewan, and producing only from vertical wells to date:

The total cumulative oil production from these 18 wells is little more than 200,000 barrels. The cumulative gas production, however, is over 115 BCF of dry gas (Table 1). Converting the gas to barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), assuming 5,620 cubic feet of dry gas (methane) equals 1 barrel of oil, over 17 million BOE have been produced from wells that have completed and produced from the Black Island Formation, while the water production total is ~450,000 barrels. Overall, the average Black Island well has cumulatively produced 960,463 BOE with only 24,960 barrels of water. Even after 15+ years of production, Black Island completions produce very little water.

[Note: the "5,620" conversion factor varies based on BTU content of the natural gas; I often use a conversion factor of 6,000.]

At the linked article, one can locate/track individual wells, such as:

• 1231, 168, Hess, Beaver Lodge-Ordovician Unit 1, Beaver Lodge, Ordovician formation, a dry gas well targeting the Ordovician, t6/63; cum 14,924,835 mcf --> 2.7 million boe! Still active as recent as a year ago; almost 50 years of production;
• 1231, 258, Hess, Beaver Lodge-Ordovician Unit 1, Beaver Lodge, Devonian formation, oil, t11/57,  cum 224K 10/12 (IA)

Another well, still active:

• 12432, 1, Hess, Beaver Lodge-Ordovician Unit 9, Beaver Lodge, Ordovician formation, a dry gas well targeting the Ordovician, t9/92; cum 12,116,594 mcf --> 2.16 million boe! Still active in 2012.

Another example:

• 13405, 10, Hess, Brenna-Lacey 1 32, Antelope, Winnipeg/Deadwood, a dry gas well targeting the Ordovician/Winnipeg; t11/92; cum 19,047,919 mcf --> 3.4 million boe! And again, still active.