Sixty-Three (63) Whiting Wells/Permits Transferred To NP Resources; NP Resources WIth Two Additional Permits Renewed -- March 29, 2016

Active rigs:

	3/29/2016	03/29/2015	03/29/2014	03/29/2013	03/29/2012
Active Rigs	31	97	194	188	206

One well coming off confidential list Wednesday:

31183, 607, CLR, Addyson 4-23H, Brooklyn, 4 sections, t2/16; it looks like this well was completed; tested; and then taken off-line; 30 stages, 7.4 million lbs; TD - 21,013; spud, June 16, 2015; TD, June 27, 2016; first well on this four-well pad; trip gases as high as 9,459 units; the highest non-trip gas show was 5,972 units; for future reference: the geologist's report is one of the best I've seen describing the geology.

One new permit:

• Operator: Petroshale (US)
• Field: Squaw Creek (McKenzie)
• Comment: first new permit in quite awhile

Five (5) producing wells completed:

• 29564, 3,583, Statoil, Skarston 1-12 XE 1H, Banks, 4 sections, t3/16; cum --
• 30077, 246, Triangle USA, Arnegard 150-100-23-14-9TFH, Timber Creek, t3/16; cum --
• 30078, 526, Triangle USA, Arnegard 150-100-23-14-3H, Timber Creek, t3/16; cum --
• 31215, 479, XTO, FBIR Reese 43X-33A, Heart Butte, ICO, t2/16; cum --
• 31665, 814, Hess, AN-Evenson-152-95-0310H-10, Antelope, Sanish pool, t3/16; cum --

Fourteen (14) confidential wells said to be plugged or producing.

NOTE: Whiting transferred about 63 wells to NP Resources; reported on today's daily activity report. The most recent was #30807; the oldest was #08874. All were in southwest North Dakota; in Golden Valley County and Billings County, with about four exceptions (McKenzie County). Full list is here.

Twenty-one (21) permits renewed:

• Oasis (5), five Spratley permits, all in Mountrail County
• CLR (4), two Uhlman Federal and and two Pittburgh permits, all in McKenzie County 
• WPX (4), foru Charles Blackhawk permits in Dunn County
• Thunderbird Resources (3), three Fleck permits in McKenzie County
• NP Resources (2), two Roosevelt permits in Billings County
• Petro-Hunt (2), two Moberg permits in Burke County; the Moberg wells have been very, very good
• Whiting (1), one Pronghorn State Federal permit in Billings County 

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NP Resources

Updates

June 30, 2016: NP Resources is on the hearing dockets for July, 2016; will request the establishment of 13 new 1280-acre units and will place up to four wells on each of these units. 

Original Post

 

Another link relevant to this discussion: the number of Bakken wells Whiting is selling, and the new operators in the Bakken. 

Press release, January 14, 2016.

Williston Basin Acquisition Highlights

• 89,500 net acres, 81.5% average working interest
• 72,250 net acres HBP for development and 17,339 undeveloped net acres
• 53 operated and 7 non-operated wells, 85% average net revenue interest
• 1,050 BOEPD net production from the Bakken/Three Forks
• 173 high quality undeveloped drilling locations 

About the company:

NP Resources, LLC is a newly formed company organized and managed by the principals, founders and management of North Plains Energy, LLC entities along with its private equity partner, Vortus Investment Advisors, LLC . 

"This marks our group's latest acquisition in the current low price environment and provides NPR the opportunity to bring the latest enhanced horizontal drilling and completion techniques to this relatively undeveloped area of the Williston Basin.

The held-by-production nature of the assets will give us time to organize a well-planned development program that maximizes the return on invested capital as the industry evolves," says Steve Mercer, CEO of NPR. 

Clayton Miller, President and COO, noted, "This acquisition will build on our successful model of efficient drilling and production operations in North Dakota that will deliver top tier development and lifting costs." 

Jeff Miller and Brian Crumley, the Co-Founding Partners of Vortus, commented, "The NPM team has many years of experience in the Williston Basin Bakken play.  Having successfully worked with the management team in prior ventures, this gives us another exciting opportunity capitalizing on the current market conditions for the benefit of Vortus' partners."

About NPR Management Holdings, LLC

NPR Management Holdings, LLC is a privately held company headquartered in Denver, Colorado formed by the founders, principals, and management of North Plains Energy, LLC.  NPE's history dates back to 2007 where it set about to acquire and develop 60,000 net acres in Williams, McKenzie, Divide, and Dunn counties in the early stages of development and de-risking the western side of the Nesson Anticline.   

NPE sold its prior joint venture holdings and wholly owned leasehold including production and net undeveloped acreage in 2012 for over $700 million.   

As a result of the team's collective experience and knowledge in the basin, NP Resources, LLC is now capitalized and positioned to seek out "off market" opportunities that it sees as having considerable economic upside with a nominal increase in oil prices during this current price environment.

About Vortus Investments

Vortus Investments was founded by Jeffrey W. Miller and Brian C. Crumley and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. Vortus is an energy private equity firm focused on partnering with successful owner/operators to provide development capital in the lower middle market onshore U.S. upstream sector.  NP Resources, LLC represents Vortus' fourth investment in the upstream sector and its first investment in the Williston Basin.   

For more information, visit www.vortus.com.

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Whiting 4Q15 Earnings Transcript

The above NP Resources press release was dated January 14, 2016. I did not see anything about this sale specifically in the 4Q15 Whiting transcript. From the 4Q15 Whiting transcript, in the Q&A:

Hi, Jim. Thanks for taking my question here. Looking at the latest presentation, it looks like the Bakken acreage is down to 455,000 net acres, a couple hundred thousand acres down from the last time. Can you go into what the change is there and what drove that?

James J. Volker - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer

Sure. Basically we sold off some of our western, which is the far west edge of the Williston Basin where the results in the Bakken out there for other operators has not been all that great. So we let that go. And then we sold part of the old Lewis & Clark, which was only about 1,000 barrels a day, but got a great price for it. Got about $41 million for it for people who wanted to go in there and do some other types of drilling as well.

So, yeah, we basically sold off a part of the Bakken that we didn't think made it in a $30 long-term price environment. But we kept roughly 0.5 million acres, as you just pointed out, that's 99% HBP and that we consider to be, as we say in that slide, 700 MBOE-plus type acreage. So we've got a lot of acreage left to develop.

When you look at our whole sort of across-the-board inventory of things that we have to drill, we're up there to close to 4 billion barrels with all reserve categories, including resources and everything. So, lots of future net revenue out there that we can develop even if price is in the, I'm going to say, the $45 or less, down to $30-type category. And we're just kind of cutting back on spending here until we hopefully can see at least a little bounce up in the price of oil.

Paul Grigel - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.

Okay. And all those asset sales are included in the roughly $500 million from last year, correct?

James J. Volker - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer

Yes, sir.

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Whiting Shopping Texas Assets

I don't know where this stands. Dated March 13, 2015:

Whiting Petroleum Corp, North Dakota's largest oil producer, has put Texas acreage and pipeline assets up for sale as an alternative to a sale of the full company, according to sources familiar with the matter.

This strategy could appease investors outraged by the possibility of any outright sale. It would dispose of assets not central to the core shale operations and generate cash for the company's balance sheet, laden with more than $3 billion in debt after the December buyout of smaller rival Kodiak Oil & Gas.

JPMorgan has shopped the full company in recent days to select parties, several people said. However, several potential acquirers' interest in buying all of Whiting was tepid due to concerns about Whiting's $5.63 billion debt load, the sources said.

Looking quickly at the transcripts for the four quarters in 2015, I didn't see any mention of Whiting selling Texas assets.