The real question is when did the oil companies know that some of the sweet spots in the Bakken were/are going to produce million-bbl-EUR wells?
When I started the blog, I think the consensus among the lay public and the four people reading my blog was that we were looking at 350,000-bbl-EUR Bakken wells.
That quickly went to the staggering 500,000-bbl-EUR level.
Then CLR famously said the average Bakken well would be 603,000-bbl-EURs. That was the average. There will have to be a lot of million-bbl-EUR wells to offset some of those
If the "real" question is when did the oil companies first realize they were looking at million-bbl-EUR wells, the second question is: is that all there is? Will we top out at one million bbls.
Regular readers know that we've already talked about two-million-bbl-EUR wells. A look back on some posts I quickly found (there are probably others):
- Filloon: 2-million-bbl-EURs in the Bakken, January 7, 2013
- Not ready for prime time; for my own use, June 2, 2014
- Filloon: 1.5-million-bbl-EURs in the Bakken, December 5, 2012
- KOG EURs in the Bakken nearing a million bbls, May 21, 2012
- How naive we were, January 17, 2012
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Finally, The Photos
And Great Video
The New York Times is reporting:
Destroying such tunnels was the stated goal of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza, which began July 17. But 11 days into the mission, and after Israeli officials say they have found 31 tunnels and destroyed 15, Palestinian militants again penetrated underground into Israel on Monday evening and confronted soldiers in a staging area. Multiple soldiers were killed, a senior military official said, as was at least one of the men from Gaza.
“We will not complete the operation without neutralizing the tunnels, the sole purpose of which is the destruction of our civilians and the killing of our children,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel declared in a televised address afterward. “It cannot be that the citizens of the state of Israel will live under the deadly threats of missiles and infiltration through tunnels — death from above and death from below.”I imagine similar tunnels from Mexico to the US.
Israeli experts said each tunnel would take up to a year and cost up to $2 million to build, involving dozens of diggers working by hand and with small electric tools. The military has known about the tunnels since at least 2003 and had a task force studying them for a year, but was nonetheless stunned at the sophisticated network they found.
Intelligence officers track the tunnels by watching for piles of dirt and men disappearing into buildings for days, as well as through communications equipment used underground, according to several Army veterans. But radar designed to detect oil or gas far deeper underground, they said, has often failed to find the tunnels, which burrow through mixed soil closer to the surface that technology has not yet been able to detect.
“Most of the tools, the physical tools, don’t work on this level of the ground — the physics, it’s very limited,” explained Brig. Gen. Shimon Daniel, who commanded Israel’s combat engineering corps from 2003 to 2007 and has since retired. “This is the paradox. It’s not easier. It’s more difficult.”
Propaganda?Israeli political and military leaders mention the tunnel threat nearly every time they speak, and have gained widespread international support for eliminating them. The military in recent days has distributed photographs of tunnels that troops uncovered, and videos of them placing explosives inside and blowing some up. As part of the propaganda push, the military has also invited a few journalists underground for a tour.
At $2 million/tunnel, at least we know where Hamas is spending US taxpayer money in humanitarian aid.
USGS has lower average expected well EURs and they are a neutral observer that took a real effort (30 page pdf full of math) to chart and model EURs. Also Enno's cum curves show no big change from 2011-2014. I would just be wary of extrapolating big wells to the average well in the basin. Heck, even on IPs, there are a lot that come up on your page that are well below 1000.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct; the USGS is very conservative. Their most recent estimate was based on one or two wells per drilling section, I believe.
DeleteSpeaking of those IPs less than a 1,000, this well's IP was less than 900 and has gone on to produce more than 1 million bbls in less than 4 years, but yes, this is an outlier:
20210, 803, CLR, Whitman 2-34H, Oakdale, Bakken, s1/11; t9/11; F; cum 1.04 million bbls 4/14; 24 stages; 2.4 million lbs; middle Bakken; runs south; 4 section spacing;
For other monster wells:
http://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com/2009/11/monster-wells.html
And again, the top 20 will hit a million bbls each and these wells are still highly productive, and will produce for many, many years.
http://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com/2014/07/reminder-link-to-north-dakota-geologic.html
Time will tell. As I have said many, many times, with regard to the Bakken, I am irrationally exuberant.
The Whitman well you always mention is an anomaly (not just as to its IP) and doesn't even correlate to the other two Whitman wells in that spacing unit (which for some reason you never mention), much less to the Bakken in general. The other Whitman MB well has taken six years to produce 350k bbls and the TF well has done 100k bbls in three years. Average all the wells together in this Whitman unit by bbls/yr, and it isn't so spectacular. I'll bet there are thousands of wells not much different than the other two never mentioned Whitman wells.
DeleteOkay.
DeleteFor those interested in the Whitman wells, simply search "Whitman" at the blog's search site. They are all listed. I generally update wells in one location. I don't know how many times I've referenced the Whitman wells, but this is probably one of the better spots to get the updates:
Deletehttp://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com/2012/09/this-was-sent-to-me-as-comment.html
Here are a few of the wells in the immediate area in the Oakdale oil field:
17061, 664, CLR/BR, Whitman 11-34H, 34-147-96, Oakdale, AL, t6/10; cum 291K 6/12;
17079, 559, CLR/BR, Carson Peak 44-2H, 2-146-96, Oakdale, AL, t6/08; cum 198K 6/12;
17334, 811, CLR, Morris 1-23H, 23-147-96, Oakdale, AL, t11/08; cum 173K 6/12;
18275, 1,004, CLR, Hawkinson 1-22H, 22-147-96, Oakdale, F, t2/10; cum 403K 6/12;
18858, 715, CLR, Morris 3-26H, 26-147-96, Oakdale, F, t5/11; cum 186K 6/12;
18859, 680, CLR, Carson Peak 3-35H, 26-147-96, Oakdale, F, t5/11; cum 262K 6/12;
18860, 517, CLR, Morris 2-26H, 26-147-96, Oakdale, F, t5/11; cum 122K 6/12;
18861, 759, CLR, Carson Peak 2-35H, 26-147-96, Oakdale, F, t5/11; cum 289K 6/12;
20208, 960, CLR, Hawkinson 2-27H, 34-147-96, Oakdale, F, t9/11; cum 154K 6/12;
20210, 803, CLR, Whitman 2-34H, 34-147-96, Oakdale, F, t9/11; cum 465K 6/12;
20211, 263, CLR, Hawkinson 3-27H, 34-147-96, Oakdale, F, t9/11; cum 174K 6/12;
20212, 482, CLR, Whitman 3-34H, 34-147-96, Oakdale, F, t9/11; cum 61K 6/12
The last update appears to have been back in June, 2012. I will update them, perhaps, if the spirits moves me.
Thanks for your articles , I enjoy them immensely. As to tunnels from Mexico I would like to tell about an experience I had in 1998.
ReplyDeleteI wanted a pair of sea turtle boots which are illegal to sell in the US so having a reason to be in Tucson , we went across the boprder. There was a hug boot store within 2 blocks so finding the boots I wanted I asked about the chance of losing them at customs . The manager asked where I was parked and upon telling him in the Burger king parking lot he pointed to a helper and said Jose would deliver them to me @ a prescribed time. He had me put a mark in my boots to make sure they were the ones I purchased. I put them on a visa card and upon delivery I was to sign the doc. and get the boots. So at the time agreed I started looking for Jose and was not finding him, since we also spoke or another meeting place I went across the street. No luck there so back to B King lot where my friend had found Jose and received the boots without a signature .I waited for months for a bill from visa but never was charged for them . But the point I was after was Jose had access to a tunnel as this occurred many times at the boot store I was told by the manager ! Thanks again for your great work , Ray Bergh, Morgan Ut !!
That is hilarious; one just wonders how many tunnels there are. And after all these years some of the tunnel openings could be well away from the border, opening into homes of friendly "helpers." Perhaps a cottage industry of tunnel entrepreneurs along the entire US-Mexican border. Thank you for taking time to write such a long note. I hope you enjoyed your boots. I've collected many exotic animal skin boots over the years but never anything that exotic.
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