115 Wells Transferred From MDU (Fidelity) To Kaiser-Francis -- January 22, 2016

Active rigs:

	1/22/2016	01/22/2015	01/22/2014	01/22/2013	01/22/2012
Active Rigs	47	159	187	188	203

Three (3) new permits --

• Operator: XTO
• Field: Bear Creek (Dunn)
• Comments:

One (1) producing well completed:

• 29990, 686, Abraxas, Stenehjem 5H, North Fork, t11/15; cum 12K 11/15 (28 days)

Transfer: ~ 115 wells from Fidelity to Kaiser-Francis Oil

• wells in Mountrail County: about 65
• wells in Stark County: about 50
• wells with permit numbers 16XXX: 7 (Mountrail)
• wells with permit numbers 17XXX: 11 (Mountrail)
• wells with permit numbers 18XXX: 5 (Mountrail)
• wells with permit numbers 19XXX: 7 (Mountrail/Stark)
• wells with permit numbers 20XXX: 1 (Stark)
• wells with permit numbers 21XXX: 9 (Mountrail)
• wells with permit numbers 22XXX: 8 (Stark/Mountrail)
• wells with permit numbers 23XXX: 19 (Mountrail/Stark)
• wells with permit numbers 24XXX:14 Mountrail/Stark)
• wells with permit numbers 25XXX: 11 (mostly Stark, one Mountrail)
• wells with permit numbers 26XXX:2 (Stark)
• wells with permit numbers 27XXX: 4 (Stark)
• wells with permit numbers 28XXX: 9 (Stark/Mountrail)
• wells with permit numbers 29XXX: 
• wells with permit numbers 30XXX: 
• wells with permit numbers 31XXX: 8 (Mountrail)

Long-term readers are familiar with Kaiser-Francis Oil. One of the first times I blogged about Kaiser-Francis -- maybe the first time -- was back on July 18, 2011. If you haven't read that post, you might find it interesting. The Bakken: winners and losers. New opportunities. A google search will reveal a few other Kaiser-Francis links on the blog.

As of 2014, Kaiser-Francis does not make the list of top 10 oil and/or natural gas producers in the US.

Not broken down by oil or natural gas, the top ten private producers by boe published as of January 2016:

• Hilcorp Energy Co
• Chief Oil & Gas LLC
  Samson Investment Co
• LLOG Exploration Co
• Merit Energy Co
• Mewbourne Oil Co
• Yates Petroleum Corp
• Petro-Hunt Group
• Endeavor Energy Resources LP
• Sheridan Production Co LLC

On this list, near the end of 2014, Kaiser-Francis was ranked #20.

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Back To Fidelity (MDU)

My data goes back to 2008:

• 2008: 26 permits, all 17XXX series; mostly Mountrail, some Bowman, one Burke County
• 2009: 9 permits, all 18XXX series; all Mountrail
• 2010: 17 permits, 18XXX, 19XXX, and 20XXX permits; Mountrail and Stark counties
• 2011: 16 permits, 21XXX, 22XXX permits; mostly Mountrail, some Stark county
• 2012: 107 permits, 22XXX, 23XXX, 24XXX permits, mostly Mountrail, some Stark county
• 2013: 42 permits, 27XXXX, 26XXX, 25XXX, 24XXX permits, about half/half, Mountrail/Stark
• 2014: 44 permits, 28XXX, 27XXX permits, Mountrail, Stark counties
• 2015: 8 permits, all Mountrail County
• 2016: 0 permits

As of this date, January 22, 2016, it appears the wells that Kaiser-Francis has acquired from Fidelity, have been moved over to Kaiser-Francis, over at "Well Search" at the NDIC website.

Kaiser-Francis currently has 132 wells according to NDIC "well search." It appears about 115 of those wells were formerly Fidelity wells.

Fidelity still has 121 wells according to NDIC as of this date, January 22, 2016.  Of these 121 wells, eighty-six (86) of them are in the Cedar Hills oil field, Bowman County, far southwest corner of North Dakota. If my numbers are correct (and they could be way wrong), it looks like MDU sold almost its entire existing "Fidelity" inventory to one company.

If I recall correctly, Fidelity previously said they had divested Fidelity among four or five other companies but that the Cedar Hills wells might not be sold at this time (see comments below). If that is accurate, Fidelity sold 115 wells to Kaiser-Francis, and it is yet to be released who to whom the remaining 35 wells were sold.

Whatever, it looks like Kaiser-Francis could move to the list of top private oil producers in the US, unless, of course, they "flip" the sale.

Disclaimer: much of this is based on my own data base which is taken from daily activity reports, and will contain errors. I am doing this for my own interest. If this is important to you, go to the source. Do not use this blog as a source for any information when making financial, investment, or travel decisions. This blog will have typographical and factual errors. The blog is simply here for me to help understand the Bakken. I post it publicly for a number of reasons, mostly because I get great feedback from readers telling me where I am wrong, or giving me some great links. 

More data from the NDIC data base and looking at what might have been the Fidelity wells that were transferred to Kaiser-Francis:

• total wells transferred: 115
• inactive: 3
• produced less than 30 days in November, 2015: 4 (one of those produced 28 days)
• permits only (LOC): 8 permits
• on CONF status: 8  
• total production in November, 2015, from the 98 wells producing (including the four that produced less than a full 30 days; for those four wells I used the production from the last full month): 170,305 bbls
• per day: 170,305/30 = 5,676 bopd from all active wells
• per day, per well: 58 bopd per well (the Williston Basin averages about 94 bopd per well, right now)
• range: best well produced 6,067 bbls of crude oil in November, 2015; the well producing the least amount of oil in November, 2015, produced 332 bbls in the full month of 30 days

Note: this is bbls of crude oil. This is not boe; natural gas probably makes up about 10% of total production. Disclaimer: again, the numbers above are subject to huge error; this is simply best-guess, back-of-the-envelope calculations. Do not make any financial, investment, or travel decisions based on these numbers; if this data is important to you, go to the source.

Assuming these wells require minimum maintenance, these wells at $20/bbl could be generating about $3 million / month. In an earlier post, I suggested what companies like Kaiser-Francis might be paying for these wells on a per-bbl basis. But it starts to get real complicated, real fast, so I won't go any farther.