Random Look At An Interesting Well In A Most Interesting Oil Field In The Bakken -- February 21, 2017

Disclaimer: this was the last thing I did before turning in for the night. There may be all kinds of mistakes in this post. Tomorrow morning I may regret having posted it, but for now I will take the chance. We'll sort it out later. 

Disclaimer: in a long note like this there will be typographic and factual errors. After spending a lot of time on this, I hope I didn't make a really simple mistake. But I probably did. If I did, I will find it tomorrow. Whatever. I may be seeing things that don't exist. I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken. I guess this is for my own use. Don't quote me on any of this. If this is important to you, go to the source.

Comment: for newbies, I think this well teaches us a lot about the Bakken. It's the kind of stuff analysts on Wall Street in NYC really don't have time for. 

Another comment: This is another one of those posts where I assume landmen and roughnecks will laugh at me. That's fine.

But I'm like a kid in a candy store when it comes to the Bakken. The Bakken never ceases to amaze me and I never get tired of looking at it or blogging about it. I do hit a wall once in awhile, but the "bad periods" only last a few days at most.

Again, for newbies, I have no background or training or experience in oil exploration and production. Nada. Nil. Zilch. I probably understand 3% of what I read about the Bakken.  But I've been blogging about the Bakken since 2007 and it never gets old.

I think operators are still learning about the Bakken. I think there are a lot of surprises left.

What is Love, A Night at The Roxbury

*********************************

So, let's get started.

Earlier tonight I was looking at a well with this production profile over the last few months:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	12-2016	31	10011	10082	3771	24441	23965	260
BAKKEN	11-2016	30	12178	12310	5268	28301	28092	0
BAKKEN	10-2016	27	16111	15966	7797	32522	29791	2543
BAKKEN	9-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	8-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	7-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

The full profile is here.

For one to really understand the post, it's important to look at the full profile.

The full profile is here. (All three links take you to the same "full profile" -- but I'm serious -- you have to spend some time with the "full profile" of this well), the index well:

• 17400, 546, Petro-Hunt, Sherven Trust 27B-2-4H, Charlson, t3/09; cum 265K 12/16; about 1 million lbs first frack; second frack and second IP later.

Okay, so you've looked at the full profile.

I did not stumble upon this well by accident. There is a method to my madness. Be that as it may.

This is an important well. It tells us much about the future of the Bakken. It brings up many, many questions. And provides a bit of insight regarding the Bakken and a bit of insight regarding unconventional plays.

I don't understand the specifics, but the short story appears to be this:

This well was originally drilled as a middle Bakken well back in 2009. For a 2009 well, it was not bad, with an IP of 546 bbls of oil and an early production profile that looked like this:

BAKKEN	6-2009	30	6623	6580	521	8376	0	8166
BAKKEN	5-2009	31	8686	8668	705	10714	604	9893
BAKKEN	4-2009	30	12416	12334	1300	15568	4076	11282
BAKKEN	3-2009	8	3310	3059	1390	1627	1410	0
BAKKEN	2-2009	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	1-2009	1	7	254	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	12-2008	30	948	961	5	1852	0	1635
BAKKEN	11-2008	8	1239	711	1	845	0	635
BAKKEN	10-2008	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	9-2008	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	8-2008	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	7-2008	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	6-2008	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	5-2008	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	4-2008	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Once fracked, its first month of production was a pretty decent (for that time period) 13,416 bbls/month and then the typical dreaded Bakken decline, down to less than 9,000 bbls the very next month.

Then something happened. Maybe it was being re-worked, who knows, I couldn't interpret the report, but landmen and roughnecks will understand it, but the bottom line is this: the production profile looked like this:

BAKKEN	5-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	4-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	3-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	2-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	1-2016	0	0	0	0	7	0	0
BAKKEN	12-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	11-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	10-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	9-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	8-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	7-2015	0	0	0	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	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Even if you have no background in oil exploration, I think the data above is pretty clear cut. The hint: all the zeros. For newbies, this tells us that from March, 2015, to May, 2016, this well was shut-in, not producing a thing. If this was Apollo 13, this was the "Houston, we have a problem" moment.

Again, I don't understand the lingo, so I don't know the specific cause, but suffice it to say, somehow the well was screwed up.

But this is the Charlson field and Petro-Hunt had the lease and didn't want to lose a good well. The Charlson is a very, very good field. (Teague first identified the Charlson as a great Bakken oil field, and I owe him a lot for pointing that out.)

Petro-Hunt had a gazillion options, but it appears it came down to two options: 

a) re-drill the well, drilling a new lateral and targeting the same formation, the middle Bakken; or,
b) re-drill the well, drilling lower, and targeting the Three Forks.

They chose the latter.

But you know, you know what's really cool? They didn't do the simple thing, the obvious thing. They didn't target the first bench of the Three Forks; they targeted the second bench of the Three Forks.

So, now look at the events:

First, the index well, #17400, first drilled as a middle Bakken, initial production, after that frack back in 2009:

BAKKEN	5-2009	31	8686	8668	705	10714	604	9893
BAKKEN	4-2009	30	12416	12334	1300	15568	4076	11282
BAKKEN	3-2009	8	3310	3059	1390	1627	1410	0

Then, the dreaded Bakken decline (see full profile, linked above) until March, 2014, when production for one month surged to almost 20,000 bbls from only 6,000 bbls the month before (and it was off-line for two days):

BAKKEN	4-2014	30	4383	4235	2015	8016	7706	99
BAKKEN	3-2014	31	18919	19052	5669	27213	14889	12107
BAKKEN	2-2014	26	5668	5574	2551	7352	2003	5168

What could explain the jump from 6,000 bbls to 20,000 bbls in one month? I have no idea. LOL.

But it is interesting that a neighboring well was fracked just prior to that surge:

NDIC File No: 26205     API No: 33-053-05205-00-00    
Well Type: OG     Well Status: A     Status Date: 2/1/2014     Wellbore type: Horizontal
Location: NENE 28-153-95     Latitude: 48.049781     Longitude: -102.893604
Current Operator: PETRO-HUNT, L.L.C.
Current Well Name: SHERVEN TRUST 153-95-27B-3H
Elevation(s): 2347 KB   2321 GR   2323 GL     Total Depth: 16331     Field: CHARLSON
Spud Date(s):  11/5/2013
Completion Data
   Pool: BAKKEN     Perfs: 10560-16331     Comp: 2/1/2014     Status: AL     Date: 9/19/2014    
Cumulative Production Data
   Pool: BAKKEN     Cum Oil: 196095     Cum MCF Gas: 377642     Cum Water: 47771
Production Test Data
   IP Test Date: 2/2/2014     Pool: BAKKEN     IP Oil: 1514     IP MCF: 2952     IP Water: 3814


See the graphic below to note where #26205 is in relationship to the index well.

So, we have an index well that jumps in production from 6,000 bbls to 20,000 bbls month-over-month with no obvious explanation but a neighboring well was fracked at just that time.

Sherlock had a way to explain this. 

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

****************************

Stick with me. It gets more complicated. Or at least more interesting.

Note that another neighboring well was fracked in February, 2015 (#27375) (see graphic below). One might expect something similar. But the index well was shut-in at that time, so we will never how interesting it might have been.

******************************

Fast forward to 2016. Petro-Hunt has this really cool well in a really cool field, the Charlson, but the well is messed up. Something screwed up the well. Petro-Hunt had a gazillion options, as noted above, but decided to re-drill the well and target the second bench of the Three Forks.

I find that really gutsy; really cool. Re-drilling the middle Bakken with a new lateral would have guaranteed another good well, but Petro-Hunt decided to test the second bench of the Three Forks.

Perhaps it was just something the CEO wanted to do, or perhaps the geologists saw stuff from the original work and were curious what the second bench might do. So, the re-drill targeting the second bench of the Three Forks got them this:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	12-2016	31	10011	10082	3771	24441	23965	260
BAKKEN	11-2016	30	12178	12310	5268	28301	28092	0
BAKKEN	10-2016	27	16111	15966	7797	32522	29791	2543
BAKKEN	9-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	8-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Not too shabby, as we used to say.  

******************************

I will stop here. There's enough stuff here to keep me busy for hours, asking questions, positing opinions, but we'll leave it at that.  

Here's the  graphic: