Case Study: Halo Effect, Can The Halo Effect "Stretch" Across A Drilling Unit? Part I -- CLR Bridger Wells In Rattlesnake Point Oil Field -- March 22, 2016

The CLR Bonneville / Bridger well are tracked here. 

Updates

December 1, 2018: see this post for an example of an halo effect between a middle Bakken well and a Three Forks upper bench well.   

 Original Post

This is going to be one of those long notes and there are likely to be major typographical and/or factual errors. Some of the geological reports are not yet filed for the wells under discussion. A reader alerted me to this, and I'm not sure the reader and I are talking about the same thing, but if we are, this is quite interesting.

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Case Study: Possible Halo Effect

This is what got us wondering. Look at the production profile of this well. This well is an "old" well. By January, 2015, it was producing about 400 bbls of oil/month. It was taken off-line for several months in mid-2015; when it returned to production, production jumped 6-fold, up to almost 3,000 bbls of oil per month by January, 2016, one year later. Also, look at the surge in water production. What happened?

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	1-2016	31	2849	2922	1090	3370	37	3333
BAKKEN	12-2015	27	2602	2678	1158	3065	0	3065
BAKKEN	11-2015	3	321	227	82	382	0	382
BAKKEN	10-2015	31	2198	2014	1407	2610	0	2610
BAKKEN	9-2015	30	2101	2227	2428	2513	0	2513
BAKKEN	8-2015	21	1219	911	2978	1364	0	1364
BAKKEN	7-2015	0	0	99	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	6-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	5-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	4-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	3-2015	1	0	0	3	0	0	0
BAKKEN	2-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	1-2015	28	335	429	112	192	147	45
BAKKEN	12-2014	31	482	437	153	339	331	8
BAKKEN	11-2014	30	533	687	158	392	252	140
BAKKEN	10-2014	22	407	222	345	461	110	351
BAKKEN	9-2014	30	443	670	183	438	366	72
BAKKEN	8-2014	31	474	448	150	378	243	135
BAKKEN	7-2014	31	506	452	143	364	279	85

Regular readers know that if I see a huge jump in production that can't be explained from the well file, I start looking for the halo effect. Especially if that surge in production includes a jump in water production as well.

This is a screenshot of the area under discussion. The production profile above is for #17089:

In this area, the Bridger wells run north, the Bonneville wells run south. For purposes of this discussion, ignore the Bonneville wells.

Trying to keep things simple, "A" wells come from the same pad; "B" wells come from the same pad; "C" wells come from the same pad. The one "D" well is the index well, #17089.

The horizontal that would most likely exert a halo effect on #17089 would be "C-3." But the "C" wells are all DUCs -- they have not been fracked (confirmed by checking FracFocus which has no record of the "C" wells being fracked yet).

In addition, C-3 is a Three Forks well; the index well is a middle Bakken well (but that is irrelevant for now).

That leaves the "B" wells -- look how far away the "B" wells are from the index well. But the "B" wells were all fracked in July, 2015. The index well was taken off-line when the "B" wells were fracked; and when the index well, #17089, came back on-line, it had a significant bump-up in production. 

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The Wells In The Graphic Above

A-pad: a 2-well Bridger/2-well Bonneville pad in the graphic:

• 19009, 651, CLR, Bonneville 3-23H, Rattlesnake Point, 4 sections, runs south, middle Bakken, 24 stages, 2.5 million lbs, t12/10; cum 268K 1/16;
• 19011, 725, CLR, Bridger 3-14H, Rattlesnake Point, 4 sections, runs north, middle Bakken, 21 stages, 2.3 million lbs, t12/10; cum 275K 1/16;
• 19012, 365, CLR, Bonneville 2-23H, Rattlesnake Point, 4 sections, runs south, Three Forks, 24 stages, 2.5 million lbs, t12/10; cum 137K 1/16;
• 19013, 399, CLR, Bridger 2-14H, Rattlesnake Point, 4 sections, runs north, Three Forks, 21 stages, 2.3 million lbs, t12/10; cum 205K 1/16;

3-well Bonneville pad in the graphic (ignore)

• 29549, SI/NC, CLR, Bonneville 6-23H1,
• 29550, SI/NC, CLR, Bonneville 5-23H,
• 29551, SI/NC, CLR, Bonneville 4-23H,

B-pad: a 3-well Bridger pad in the graphic:

• 29552, 1,977, CLR, Bridger 6-14H1, runs north, middle Bakken, 30 stages, 6 million lbs, t9/15; cum 98K 1/16; permit shows Three Forks B2, geologic report not yet filed; fracked 7/20 - 7/27;
• 29553, 1,160, CLR, Bridger 5-14H, runs north, middle Bakken 30 stages, 3.3 million lbs, t9/15; cum 94K 1/16; fracked 7/11 - 7/20;
• 29554, 1,018, Bridger 4-14H2, Three Forks, 30 stages, 6 million lbs, t1/16; cum 78K 1/16; fracked 7/11 - 7/20

C-pad: a 3-well Bridger pad in the graphic:

• 31847, SI/NC, CLR, Bridger 9-14H1, Three Forks B1, runs north,
• 31846, SI/NC, CLR, Bridger 8-14H, middle Bakken, runs north,
• 31845, SI/NC, CLR, Bridger 7-14H2, Three Forks B2, runs north, 

Two singletons: index well -- #17089

• 17089, 400, CLR, Bridger 44-14H, open hole frack, 1 million lbs, t4/08; cum 128K 1/16;
• 17088, 267, CLR, Bonneville 41-23H, open hole frack, 1 million lbs, t4/08; cum 122K 1/16;

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What About #17088

What about #17088? It does not show any bump-up in production. And guess what: the "B" wells that run to the south (Bonneville wells) are DUCs, they have not been fracked.

The Bonneville wells that run from the "A" pad have been fracked but they are either a) too far away from #17088 to have an effect; or, more likely, the small amount of sand used in these wells (2 million lbs) vs the larger amount of sand used in the other wells (6 million lbs) was not enough for a halo effect.

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Anyway that's what I see. Again, I may be seeing things that don't exist. In a long note like this there will be typographical and factual errors. A huge "thank you" to the reader for alerting me to this.

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There's More

And even with all that, there's more. See Part II for perhaps another example of the halo effect in the very same area.