"Helis Grail" Case Study -- December 14, 2018

Back-of-the-envelope calculations.

I was curious after a reader asked about Vantage Energy Acquisition Corporation.

The data below is for the "Helis Grail," the Grail oil field in North Dakota, and specifically, the Bakken pool in that field.  The "Helis Grail" is tracked at this post; it has not been updated in quite some time.

The "Helis Grail" oil field is "owned" by one operator.

Disclaimer: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken. I often make simple arithmetic errors. I did this quickly and there will be errors. The way I do things / the way I look at things are often deemed bizarre. If this information is important to you, go to the source.

For newbies:

• Extrapolating from actual number of days production each month to hypothetical 30-day month only works after steady state reached. In spreadsheet below, the data for this metric is probably meaningful for only September, 2018, and January, 2018.
• The decline rate is well known in the Bakken

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Data Points for Oil / Natural Gas Production in the Grail-Bakken

Link to NDIC's monthly production report index.

January, 2016 (31-day month)

• 159 wells
• days: 3759
• oil: 840,089 bbls
• gas: 1,241,917 MCF

January, 2017 (31-day month)

• 182 wells
• days: 4808
• oil: 720,811 bbls
• gas: 1,458,762 MCF

January, 2018 (31-day month)

• 203 wells
• days: 5824
• oil: 669,332 bbls
• gas: 1,851,525 MCF

September, 2018 (30-day month)

• 203 wells
• days: 5778
• oil: 600,347 bbls
• gas: 1,820,738 MCF

	September 2018	January 2018	January 2017	January 2016
Number of wells	203	203	182	159
Oil Production	600,347	669,332	720,811	840,089
BOE natural gas	303,406	308,536	243,086	206,952
Total BOE	903,753	977,868	963,897	1,047,041
Average BOE / well	4,452	4,817	5,296	6,585
Days production	5,778	5,824	4,808	3,759
Average days production / well	28	29	26	24
Extrapolate full 30-day production average	4,692	5,037	6,014	8,356
Average oil production / well	2,957	3,297	3,961	5,284
Average boe production / well	4,452	4,817	5,296	6,585
Oil / BOE ratio	66.43%	68.45%	74.78%	80.23%