Halo Effect Of Fracking, A Case Study In Truax Oil Field, The Wood Wells -- February 14, 2015

Updates

April 10, 2016: this area has been updated at this post.

Original Post

 

This should be fun for newbies and long-time readers. This is going to be a long post. I recommend getting out the popcorn and a beverage of your choice. Remember, I have no formal training or background in the oil and gas industry. This is simply my observations, my opinions, and they could be way wrong. I'm sure there will be landmen and roughnecks that laugh at my observations but that's fine. For all their hard work under very, very tough conditions, they deserve a bit of entertainment. However, if this information is important to you, talk to an expert.

We will start with the screenshot:

Here is the production profile for #19857, for the past year , completed / tested back in late 2011:

• 19857, 1,533, Whiting, Wood 5-15H, t11/11; cum 220K 12/14; 

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	12-2014	30	17416	17410	11861	51805	20684	31033
BAKKEN	11-2014	30	29553	29669	32022	65931	24286	41555
BAKKEN	10-2014	18	13601	13569	74840	19388	9016	10318
BAKKEN	9-2014	22	1770	1764	1322	3913	2861	986
BAKKEN	8-2014	31	2984	2795	2347	4923	4070	760
BAKKEN	7-2014	24	1445	1577	1811	3723	2992	662
BAKKEN	6-2014	28	1694	1637	6360	3426	2104	1241
BAKKEN	5-2014	30	3022	3149	2153	6156	2612	3454
BAKKEN	4-2014	27	3769	3878	2693	7436	4846	2509
BAKKEN	3-2014	18	2476	2463	1298	4237	1115	3068
BAKKEN	2-2014	9	889	1260	422	1507	1342	138
BAKKEN	1-2014	31	2820	2517	1613	6756	4064	2601

 
Look at the jump from September / October to November / December, 2014.

In the full month of 31 days in August, 2014, only 3,000 bbls. In November, almost 30,000 bbls.

By the way, did the well ever produce this much before November, 2014? Nope, not even immediately after the original frack -- production never got above 20,000 bbls, and here, after three or four years, this well produces almost 30,000 bbls in one month. This is the production profile for the first three months of this well, completed back in late 2011:

BAKKEN	1-2012	31	15292	15819	5896	38525	0	38432
BAKKEN	12-2011	29	17773	17130	9402	40071	0	40071
BAKKEN	11-2011	9	7032	6103	17858	16674	0	16674

So much for "the dreaded Bakken decline rate." It maxed out at 18K its first month, and then several years later jumps to 30K in one month.

What's the story?

Go back and look at the screen shot of the GIS map where this well is located.

Note the horizontals that run alongside it: #28407 and #28386 or #28385. I can't tell from the GIS map for sure, but it's my hunch that the two horizontals running alongside are #28407 and #28386. (Whether it's 28386 or 28385 will make no difference.)

Here's 28407:

• 28407, 1,339, Whiting, P Wood 154-98-4#-26-15-4H, 28 stages, 3.4 million lbs, t3/15; cum 51K 10/15;

Here's #28386 (similar profile to #28385 -- again, I can't tell for sure whether the horizontal parallel to the well in question is #28386 or #28385) (most likely it's #28385 based on legal description):

• 28386, 1,930, Whiting, P Wood 154-98-1-27-34-16H, 19 stages; 4.8 million lbs; t10/14 cum

The production profile:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	12-2014	31	17477	17369	9815	35927	0	35834
BAKKEN	11-2014	30	20233	20598	15867	41598	0	41508
BAKKEN	10-2014	14	8449	7879	1465	16587	0	16548
BAKKEN	9-2014	1	0	0	0	0	0	0

Now #28385 (in case it's not #28386; #28385 is the more likely well):

• 28385, 2,241, Whiting, P Wood 154-98-1-27-15-1H3, 22 stages; 4.6 million lbs sand; t10/14; cum

The production profile:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	12-2014	26	10178	10291	8520	15944	0	15872
BAKKEN	11-2014	21	12336	12461	11219	25398	0	25337
BAKKEN	10-2014	16	10141	9721	267	21048	0	21005
BAKKEN	9-2014	1	0	0	0	0	0	0

And that, folks, is called the halo effect of fracking.

Note the following:

• the "old, existing" well  (#19857) was originally drilled/fracked in late 2011
• the "old, existing" well (#19857) was taken off-line in mid-September and brought back on line in mid October, 2014
• a "new, neighboring" well (#28385 or #28386) was fracked/completed/tested in October, 2014
• the other "new, neighboring" well (#28407) is still on DRL status; it will be interesting to see when it was fracked, or the production profiles of neighboring wells if yet to be fracked
• note the relatively low number of stages (19 stages for the old well; 22 stages for the new well); this tells me that there must be a fair amount of natural fracturing present (or other reasons for great production in the Truax (porosity, permeability, seam thickness, TOC, high pressure, etc)
• note that the "old, existing" horizontal runs northwest to southeast
• note that the "new, neighboring" horizontals run southeast to northwest 

The last two bullets are very, very interesting. I opined a long, long time ago that running new, neighboring horizontals in the opposite direction (heel-to-toe vs toe-to-heel) might have more of a halo effect than running in same directions.

Some other points to make:

• again, there are only a few horizontals in these spacing units -- 3, 4, 5, 6 or so across the Bakken. Imagine the halo effect when 24 wells (and more) are drilled in one spacing unit (remember, there is a case on the NDIC dockets requesting upwards of 60 wells in one spacing unit
• these particular wells were part of the KOG package bought by Whiting

So, now "we" have two things to think about when talking about "the dreaded decline rate" in the Bakken:

• halo effect of fracking new wells near existing wells (not only horizontally separated, but also vertically separated); and,
• re-fracking existing wells

And we haven't even begun to talk about EOR.

By the way, back to the halo effect of fracking. This opens up a whole new area of discussion. Is it more cost effective to re-frack an old well, or more cost effective to drill and frack a new well that neighbors older wells. At some point, they will drill/frack a horizontal midway between two older neighboring wells and perhaps get a jump in production in the two older wells as well as great production in the new well.

The Bakken has a lot more stories to tell.

And this is another story, 7-month-old Sophia: