Wells coming off the confidential list over long weekend, through today:
Wednesday, December 26, 2018 --
34486,
SI/NC, XTO, Nelson Federal 21X-5BXC, Antelope, no production data,
34151,
SI/NC, Hess, SC-TR Slette-153-98-1819H-8, Truax, no production data,
32277,
drl, Slawson, Goblin Federal 1 SLH, Big Bend, no production data,
Tuesday, December 25, 2018:
34150,
drl, Hess, SC-TR Slette-153-98-1819H-7, Truax, no production data,
34149,
SI/NC, Hess, SC-TR Slette-153-98-1819H-6, Truax, no production data,
Monday, December 24, 2018:
34148,
SI/NC, Hess, SC-TR Slette-153-98-1819H-5, Truax, no production data,
Sunday, December 23, 2018:
34485,
SI/NC, XTO, Nelson Federal 21X-5F, Antelope, no production data,
34147,
SI/NC, Hess, SC-TR Slette-153-98-1819H-4, Truax, no production data,
Saturday, December 22, 2018:
None.
Active rigs:
| $45.41 | 12/26/2018 | 12/26/2017 | 12/26/2016 | 12/26/2015 | 12/26/2014 |
|---|
| Active Rigs | 68 | 53 | 41 | 62 | 173 |
RBN Energy:
large-scale pad drilling in Appalachia. Archived. At the link, the writer shows why Hubbert's peak oil theory is dead.
Dominator. Showboat. Brass Monkey. These are not player names in the
re-established XFL; these are project names given to colossally
proportioned drilling pads in the Permian and Appalachia. A single one
of these well pads can be home to 20, 30, even 60 or more permitted well
spots, each with miles-long laterals branching out in multiple
directions. In today’s blog, we begin a series exploring the motivations
that sparked this trend to larger pads and discuss the impact they’re
having on the upstream and midstream sectors.
Following the price crash in 2014-15, the U.S. oil patch weathered
the storm, in part by reducing costs. Then, when prices started to
recover, the major basins rebounded with a renewed focus on efficiency. Industry observers who had been skeptical as to the longevity
or resilience of the shale boom prior to that had to concede that it
wasn’t a flash in the pan but a foundational shift, and that wasn’t
going away anytime soon. It was during that time — when prices were
recovering but survival was still a battle — that more and more of the
smaller independents who initiated the Shale Revolution began to flip
their investments to larger producers with deeper pockets. These new
owners then sought to exploit the innovations developed by the
independents but also to use their substantial balance-sheet strength to
fund large capital projects. They also used their economies of scale to
transform what had been a bespoke creative endeavor for getting the
most out of each well into a large-scale, assembly line-like
manufacturing operation
It was in this environment that truly large-scale pad drilling
projects started gaining traction. Pad drilling itself is nothing new.
It’s the practice of drilling multiple wells from a single surface
location. Though it was originally developed on the Alaskan North Slope
in the 1970s, modern pad drilling techniques more closely trace their
development to offshore platforms, where multiple directional wells
needed to be drilled from a single structure. Producers recognized that
by centralizing drilling efforts on the surface, pad drilling could help
solve challenging production conditions such as rough terrain,
environmental constraints, or urban restrictions.
That’s one reason why
pad drilling has represented a growing proportion of total wells drilled
since the Shale Revolution kicked off in the Barnett Shale and then in
the Rockies in the mid-to-late-2000s. There, the advancement of
horizontal drilling techniques synergized well with the drilling
multiple wells from a single location and made apparent the economic
incentives of pad drilling — namely, splitting the substantial
infrastructure, logistical, and rig-mobilization costs among multiple
wells. In its current context, the goal of pad drilling is to increase
each rig’s productivity by decreasing cycle times while simultaneously
reducing costs. But prior to the past few years, the scale of pad
drilling projects was generally more conservative than what we’ve seen
reported recently.
Ten years ago, it was a big deal when Chesapeake Energy publicized an
eight-well pad in the Haynesville. What has changed in the past couple
of years is the scale of these projects. The biggest of these
“super-pads” now are expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to
develop over periods of several years. They can be home to dozens of wells, with laterals ranging in length from 1 or 2 miles, with some reported to be pushing 4 miles, depending on the play.
So what’s driving the trend to ever-large pads? As hinted at above,
the name of the game is producer economics. Producers’ economics are dependent on, among others, three primary
factors: commodity price, drilling and completion costs, and well
productivity. With commodity prices largely outside the control of any
single producer, pad drilling horizontal wells takes aim at the second
and third factors. Done right, pad drilling can reduce the costs
associated with drilling, including rig mobilization, production
facilities, water and sand, trucks and roads, and pipeline takeaway.
