Random Look At Two Slawson Wells -- Part I -- March 22, 2018

This is Part I.

Part 11 is here.

Part III is here.


Disclaimer: in a long note like this, there will be typographical and factual errors. Facts, comments, and opinions are interspersed and hard to separate or discern. There are a lot of digressions. There is no hidden agenda and no "fake news" -- at least no attempt to post "fake news." I appreciate any fact checking. If this is important to you, go to the source.

For newbies: This is an interesting area to walk through -- sections 27/34-151-92, Van Hook / Big Bend (the NDIC map clearly shows this section in Big Bend oil field, but the scout tickets identify this drilling unit in Van Hook oil field).

This is a Slawson drilling unit; these are Slawson wells. Slawson always seems to have something a little bit different than the other operators.

Let's digress for a second. I talked about this a long, long time ago.

• CLR; the "face" of the Bakken; most acres; most drilling; "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" -- or in this case, "forget hedging, let's just drill"
• Whiting: years ago, wanted to exit the Bakken, or change its focus, and now appears to be the most active operator in the Bakken -- although the CLR folks might disagree with me (and I might be wrong)
• Slawson: always a surprise; liked stacked laterals; like re-entries; of the operators in this short list, Slawson is the only one not "publicly traded"
• MRO: most aggressive re-frack program, especially in fields like the Bailey oil field
• WPX: 7% of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation
• XTO: prominent player but not much to say about them
• Oasis: one of the most interesting to watch over the years; got "their break" through MDU
• QEP: simply methodically drilling out the Helis Grail

Okay, now back to the Slawson wells in section 27/34-151-92.

The first two wells in this drilling unit were #19207 and #19208. They were both short laterals, one running north, one running south.

• 19207, 613, Slawson, Vagabond 1-27H, Van Hook, t4/11; cum 358K 1/18;
• 19208, 800, Slawson, Water Moccasin 4-34-TFH, Van Hook, t4/11; cum 324K 1/18;

They were both drilled at the same time, back in 2011. This would be in the late days of the boom, about the middle of Bakken 1.0. (Bakken 1.5 was during the Saudi Surge, 2014 - 2016; Bakken 2.0 began in 2016).

The well that ran north (#19207) was a middle Bakken well; the well that ran south (#19208) was a Three Forks, upper bench, well; Slawson specifically said that this well, #19208, was a "continuation" of their program to develop the Three Forks.

On the graphic, you will notice two laterals for #19208. Generally, when one sees that in the Bakken, it is because there was a problem with the first lateral, and the operator went back in and drilled a parallel lateral to get "around" the problem. Initially I thought this was the case for #19208.

But it turns out that Slawson went back in, in 2014, re-entered the vertical, and launched another horizontal, this time in the middle Bakken.  (Interestingly, they re-entered, re-fracked #19208 just two months before they drilled / fracked three new long laterals running from the north to the south alongside these two older short laterals.)

Before we go too far in this story, let's look at the frack reports.

• First, #19207, API - 33-061-01410: FracFocus has no frack data for this well which means that the original fracks occurred in 2012 or before. And no reports of any re-frack.

• Second, #19208, API - 33-061-01411: FracFocus has two pdf fracking reports, they have different URL numbers suggesting one was the TF frack and the other was the MB frack. Again, the original frack does not show up on FracFocus; the frack report for 6/18/2014 - 6/21/2014 is for the completion of the middle Bakken horizontal, the re-entry / second lateral, and the re-frack (?) for the TF horizontal.

So, we will stop there, catch our breath. Give folks a chance to look at the graphic and imagine the drilling unit as of 2014: two wells, one going north with one lateral (middle Bakken); one going south with two laterals (a Three Forks, and then a middle Bakken); both short laterals. (Not mentioned yet, in fact, by the end of 2014, there were six more wells in this drilling unit -- but we will get to them later.)

Both were typical Bakken wells at the time; nothing great but they were what they were. 

Another digression, regarding fracking/completion:

Completion (frack) strategies vary significantly from well to well, or should we say, "can vary significantly from well to well."

• But as a starting point, let's consider this pretty much a standard frack, for a long lateral
• 10 million gallons of water = 83 million lbs of liquid
• 8% proppant (sand/ceramic) by weight of the total frack mixture = 8 million lbs of solids

A note about fracking over the years:
[Going forward, 

• before 2014: typical fracks with 4 million lbs of sand or less; BEXP/Statoil was the first to start using huge amounts of sand
• after 2014: small initial fracks (4 million lbs of sand); typical initial fracks (10 million lbs of sand); humongous fracks (20 million lbs of sand)
• after 2017: we started seeing re-fracks -- typical (4 - 8 million lbs of sand); mini-re-fracks of 2 million lbs of sand or less (and sometimes a lot less); work-overs don't include fracking or re-fracking]

Wow, lots of digressions. 

So, we are still looking at the two early wells, #19207 and #19208.

Frack data for the initial frack for these two wells:

• 19207 MB: tested April 5, 2011; 19 stages; 1.85 million lbs sand (mesh/small) -- an incredibly small amount of sand, but about the "norm" back in 2011;
• 19208, first lateral, TF: tested April 8, 2011; if it was fracked after it was first drilled, I don't see the frack data at the file report (I may have missed it; I assume it was fracked; I assume it was fracked similarly to what was used for #19207 at the same time)
• 19208, second lateral, MB: there file report shows the schematic for the re-entry but does not provide a frack / completion report. Fortunately we have the FracFocus report: fracked (as noted above) -- 6/18/2014 - 6/21/2014:
• 33-061-01411-00-00-6272014:
• water: 1,646,501 gallons
• sand: 19% by mass (assuming I'm reading the report correctly)
• 33-061-01411-00-00-7112014:
• water: 1,646,501 gallons
• sand: 19% by mass (again, same assumption)

Note: these two reports -- except for the URL numbers appear to be identical, suggesting that the reports were accidentally duplicated (my original thought) but now it appears they used the very same "mix" to frack the MB and re-frack the TF. I could be very wrong on this. 

Production profiles at time of original completion, 2011, are very similar for both wells:

#19207:

BAKKEN	8-2011	31	8448	8503	2807	5185	4875	0
BAKKEN	7-2011	31	7376	6695	3020	3769	3459	0
BAKKEN	6-2011	30	5391	6234	2819	2934	2634	0
BAKKEN	5-2011	31	9375	8143	4119	3401	3091	0
BAKKEN	4-2011	16	5084	4598	1385	488	328	0

#19208:

BAKKEN	8-2011	31	6032	5968	3956	4240	3930	0
BAKKEN	7-2011	31	6971	7237	4404	5026	4716	0
BAKKEN	6-2011	28	6083	5957	5879	3606	3326	0
BAKKEN	5-2011	31	5804	5322	3864	2316	2006	0
BAKKEN	4-2011	16	7520	6751	6240	704	544	0

 Production profiles at time of the re-entry (19208); frack of the TF and re-frack of the MB; 2014:
#19207:

BAKKEN	1-2015	19	8758	7868	4968	5836	4026	1715
BAKKEN	12-2014	3	1339	2014	921	986	565	406
BAKKEN	11-2014	30	17335	17369	12822	11662	9789	1723
BAKKEN	10-2014	31	18232	18017	15075	12391	9245	2991
BAKKEN	9-2014	13	6327	5886	4603	2744	1598	1081
BAKKEN	8-2014	17	939	1287	289	619	534	0
BAKKEN	7-2014	31	1849	1592	707	982	827	0
BAKKEN	6-2014	20	1717	1488	690	1012	912	0
BAKKEN	5-2014	11	648	731	207	407	352	0
BAKKEN	4-2014	30	1806	2140	652	1034	884	0

#19208:

BAKKEN	1-2015	19	9877	8965	4968	5371	4384	892
BAKKEN	12-2014	3	1167	1751	921	700	441	244
BAKKEN	11-2014	30	15352	15323	12822	8435	6677	1608
BAKKEN	10-2014	31	14497	14448	15075	7051	5019	1877
BAKKEN	9-2014	14	6879	6397	5826	3518	2742	706
BAKKEN	8-2014	21	8423	9491	2951	5004	4899	0
BAKKEN	7-2014	31	13241	12513	8830	4439	4284	0
BAKKEN	6-2014	3	699	307	1120	211	196	0
BAKKEN	5-2014	6	312	463	126	230	200	0
BAKKEN	4-2014	30	2135	2502	916	1367	1217	0

END OF PART 1.

This is where we stand at the end of 2014 in this drilling unit: history of two short laterals drilled in 2011.

Part 2 will look at what happened to these wells when newer long laterals were drilled and completed: three wells were completed in mid-2013 but were well west of these two short laterals; and three wells that were much closer to these two short laterals and completed just two months later, August, 2014. 

The graphics: