Bakken Learning Curve Driving Production -- NGI -- November 18, 2017

A reader just sent me this link. It's an incredible story -- nothing new for regular readers, but worth noting. This story has been told in various media outlets for the past few days. I think the resiliency of the Bakken has surprised a lot of folks. I've been reporting on that in several different posts. It began with the most recent monthly production figures and Lynn Helms comments at the time.

The story is at NGI's Shale Daily. Articles here are often behind paywalls, but apparently this one is not, at least not yet. The headline: Bakken learning curve said driving well productivity gains.

Drilling productivity in the Bakken Shale, which is producing more than 1 million b/d of light sweet crude oil, is a byproduct of geology and the fact that North Dakota operators are further along the learning curve than in other U.S. onshore plays.

Compared to a six-year-old well on average, wells now produce about 70,000 bbl more in the seventh month of their life.

Operators also are having fewer issues with hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and well interference, he said. Water and sand volumes are higher this year than they were a year ago too, which indicates more fracking and longer laterals.

Helms believes the Bakken has remained at the cutting edge in technology applications, such as fracking techniques, lateral length and the drilling speed.

"Equally important is the fact that the Bakken, with the exception of the far northwestern corner of the state, is very overpressured, much more than many of the other major U.S. plays," he said. "This makes Bakken well productivity quite a bit higher due to the rock being so over-pressured."

As noted in an earlier post, we've not yet seen many of these 3-mile long laterals talked about in the article, but we should start seeing more of them this winter. Winter weather will impact drilling to some extent, and will probably impact fracking to a great extent.

We're currently in Bakken_2.0 but it's very possible we will move into Bakken_2.5 or Bakken_3.0 based on the adoption of these 3-mile and 4-mile laterals.

By the way, I'm not seeing the huge amounts of proppant being used in the Bakken compared to other onshore plays. By Bakken standards, the amount of proppant has increased, but it seems that operators are staying below the 10-million-lb threshold in most cases. It almost looks like they are increasing the number of stages but maintaining the amount of total proppant.

From FAQs:

85. Definitions for length of laterals. Based on stories being reporting November, 2017, it appears time to formalize the parameters for laterals of various lengths in the Bakken (laterals only, not total drilling depth):

• short lateral: 4,500 feet, one section
• long lateral: 9,000 feet, two sections
• extended long lateral: 14,000 feet, three sections
• super long lateral: 18,000 feet, four sections