Story Of The Week? Fracking A New Well Improves The Production Of An Existing, Neighboring Well; A Well That Was Picked As A "Well To Watch" Back In 2009

For as long as I can remember (and at my age, that's not long), I've been opining that fracking a new well improves the production of a neighboring existing well. I mentioned that (again) at a recent post.

A reader provided some confirmatory data in this comment, which I have moved up here because comments are not googable.

The Darwin Lodgepole well, in a 640-acre spacing unit will be producing about 2,000 barrels a month from its old production of about 300 barrels a month. 

The data will be present once the December numbers post. 

The wells near this well have been fracked and this is flow from these recent fracking jobs.

This portion of the Murphy field is well known for its high gas spikes when drilling through the bottom of the Lodgepole. It seems there is some communication between the Bakken into the Lodgepole. 

Just one more data point to show in some cases there is natural communication in the wells. The well is found in 145-96 if you decide to look it. There original spacing report suggests this well would have only produced 80,000 barrels in its life time, I suspect that will change some over time. Perhaps with the newer style fracks the Lodgepole may yet become an important part in capturing the most oil possible.

What a great post! If the reader is not careful, he/she maybe asked to join the editorial staff of the blog which already includes a fair number of fairly astute individuals. Smile.

By the way, the December production numbers are out, and the reader is correct. Look at this quite incredible jump in production.

The well we are talking about and was actually mentioned as a well to watch back on October 25, 2009 (what an incredible blog -- LOL):

• 17759, Marathon, 160, Darwin 14-35, horizontal, Dunn County

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
LODGEPOLE	12-2013	31	2182	2343	1270	1073	695	192
LODGEPOLE	11-2013	13	636	466	892	406	106	229
LODGEPOLE	10-2013	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
LODGEPOLE	9-2013	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
LODGEPOLE	8-2013	27	247	234	615	322	145	34
LODGEPOLE	7-2013	31	278	227	325	374	174	15
LODGEPOLE	6-2013	30	276	427	327	374	175	19
LODGEPOLE	5-2013	31	300	230	392	378	160	32
LODGEPOLE	4-2013	30	283	235	322	344	146	30
LODGEPOLE	3-2013	31	302	231	337	374	164	24
LODGEPOLE	2-2013	28	298	475	321	350	154	28
LODGEPOLE	1-2013	31	315	224	343	384	175	23

This well was spud December, 2008. It has produced more than 2,000 bbls of oil in only two previous months, back in May, 2010 (2,540 bbls) and September, 2009 (2,139 bbls).

Just wait until operators, like Oasis, start opening the vertical portion of their wells to the Lodgepole, or drill laterals in their Bakken acreage to target the Lodgepole. It will be interesting to see if the Bakken Pugh clauses and the Lodgepole Pugh clauses (if they exist) come into play.