Sorting Out A Mystery Of A BR Archer Well In Charlson Oil Field -- October 13, 2019

Disclaimer: in a long note like this there will be typographical and factual errors. There is at least one glaring error in an original source at the NDIC file report which I did not mention. I often see things that do not exist. I did not look at all wells in the immediate area of #26419. There may be other explanations for the huge jump in production in #26419. Regardless of the jump in production, the mom-and-pop mineral owners should be thrilled to see this huge jump in production (unless they hate paying more taxes to the IRS and the state of ND). It is very possible I made a very simple error/mistake that completely negates this entire post. I certainly could have mis-identified permit numbers, which I have done before. If so, that's fine; some reader will note it and bring it to my attention. I'm simply trying to better understand the Bakken. For all I know, it was simply a work-over rig or perhaps a small meteor strike.

Note: there's a similar mystery surrounding another Petro-Hunt in Charlson oil field, #26206. See this post.

The Original Post

Begun October 12, 2019

Completed October 13, 2019

Back on February 7, 2017, this post: "Possibly a record post-shut-in-production jump in the Bakken."

I was curious to see how these wells were doing two years later. Wow, what an adventure!

The well:

• 26419, 2,904, BR, Archer 14-25TFH, Charlson, t2/14; cum 605K 8/19;

Note before going further:

• this is one of several BR Archer wells
• this BR Archer well was a Three Forks well drilled back in 2014; 
• in five years, this well had produced over 600,000 bbls of oil

The first thing I noticed: the BR Archer wells were very, very good wells, but interestingly, some of the wells had been recently taken off line for a short period of time. That piqued my interest. I thought I was only going to be updating total production but immediately there was a puzzle. Why were these really good wells coming off line?

This was the biggest puzzle: the production profile of this well (#26419) did not make sense to me.

Look what happened to production between 3/18 and 9/18 (see portion of full production profile below). The huge jump in production meant that this well had to have been re-fracked.

But, neither FracFocus nor the NDIC file report showed any re-frack. Wow. I  had not seen this before. I had not seen such a huge jump in production in which there was not a re-frack. It just doesn't happen. Period. Dot.

Again, look at the jump in production -- an "old" well plateauing out to 5,000 bbls/month and then a huge jump in production -- as much as 26,000 bbls/month -- with no evidence of a re-frack. I had no idea what was going on. This did not make sense.

BAKKEN	12-2018	31	18781	18778	3802	19123	19012	0
BAKKEN	11-2018	30	21154	21181	3991	22822	22708	0
BAKKEN	10-2018	31	25796	25830	3781	30081	29954	0
BAKKEN	9-2018	30	23855	23388	3686	27707	27592	0
BAKKEN	8-2018	12	4106	3853	960	5087	4991	54
BAKKEN	7-2018	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	6-2018	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	5-2018	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	4-2018	0	0	245	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	3-2018	18	2794	2749	414	5023	4953	0
BAKKEN	2-2018	28	4563	4463	654	3103	3023	0

That's a huge jump, from 3,000 in 3/18 (only 18 days) to 26,000 in 10/18. The only thing that could explain this was a re-frack and yet there was no re-frack.

So, we had this jump from 3,000 bbls/month to 26,000 bbls/month and no evidence of a re-frack.

Obviously there had to have been a neighboring well that had been re-fracked.

So, let's go to the map.

Wow, that turned out to be a bummer.

Note that there is no neighboring well to the well in question (#26419) -- yes, some relatively close wells but they were all the same age or older than the well in question and thus they could not have been related to that huge jump in production.

Nothing made sense.

I zoomed in on the map.

I expanded the area of the map.

 
Again, nothing jumped out at me, unless one looked at those #338XX wells to the north of the index well, #26419. If so, this is something I had never seen before (or don't recall seeing, or missed) and I Iook at literally every well that's been drilled in the Bakken since 2007.

I zoomed in on the #338XX wells. It turned out that #33817, a section line well, was closest to the index well. See map above.

I looked at the history of #33817.

Wow! Eureka! Paydirt!

#33817 was fracked just before the huge jump in production for #26419 in 10/18.

Wow. I had not seen this before. The "child" well did not parallel the "parent" well for the entire length of the horizontals. The "child" well and the "parent" well aligned for only half of the horizontal.

All wells under discussion are two-mile-long laterals, but the index well and the neighboring #338XX wells only exist side-by-side for half their lengths (I note this on the map below: a heavy red line where the wells parallel each other and a thinner red line where they do not). 

Interestingly enough, the frack for #33817 was a relatively moderate frack. Production profile and frack data for #33817 at this post.

Relationship between #33817 and the index well:

• #33817 and #26419 are 0.11 mile (580 feet) apart (horizontally).  
• but note this:
• #33817 is a middle Bakken well;
• #26419 is a Three Forks well;

The next 338XX series well to the west is #33814. Relationship of #33814 to the index well:

• #33814 is a Three Forks well; awesome!
• it is located 0.2 mile (1056 feet) to the west of the index well
• it was a very, very small frack, only 5.1 million lbs of sand (51 stages)
• production profile for this well is here;

Okay, so there you have it. Data points, facts, comments, opinions:

• #26419 is a Three Forks, first bench well, based on the name of the well, the permit and the Weatherford geological well report;
• the well was completed in February, 2014; was a great well and then showed the typical Bakken decline, plateauing at a very respectable 5,000 bbls/month by 8/17
• in early 2018, it was taken off line for five months
• when it came back on line, production jumped from 5,000 bbls/month to an astounding 26,000 bbls/month, minimally better than the original frack, but the anticipated decline occurred more quickly; but it maintained high production for several months; full production profile is posted elsewhere (see link above)
• the huge jump in production all but suggested this well had been fracked
• neither FracFocus nor the file report showed any data to suggest the well had been refracked
• it's been more than a year; the paperwork is "not in the mail"
• at first glance there were no obvious neighboring, recently-fracked wells that could account for the huge jump in production
• far to the north, and paralleling only half of the #26419 horizontal were #338XX series wells on a single pad that might have played a part
• the geographic location and timing of the fracks of the #338XX series wells would account for the jump in production of #26419
• #26419 is a Three Forks (that in itself is unusual, so early in the Bakken, to see a Three Forks well)
• closest to this Three Forks well was a middle Bakken well (#33817) -- about 500 feet west
• then, 1,000 feet to the west was another Three Forks well
• fracks for both the #33817 and the #33814 were moderate and small fracks, respectively
• I have not seen moderate and small fracks result in a neighboring well to have such a huge jump in production as we see in #26419
• there is a third #338XX well on that pad fracked at the same time as the others (actually there are four)
• there is a research paper out there, which I have linked elsewhere, published very early in the Bakken boom that suggested that the "parent-child uplift" phenomenon existed but it required three neighboring wells to be fracked simultaneously to affect a "parent" well 
• it's hard to believe that a small frack in the same formation one thousand feet away caused a huge production jump in #26419
• if not, then it was a middle Bakken well only 500 feet away that was also additive

One more thing:

• the index well, #26419, an Archer well, is a BR-operated well (Burlington Resources/COP)
• the #338XX pad to the west is a Petro-Hunt pad
• think about that, especially from BR's viewpoint

And:

• these wells are in the Charlson oil field; that field is tracked here;
• the Charlson oil field is one of the most interesting fields in the Bakken
• it was "discovered" very early (see this post); it was this field that excited me as much as the Parshall oil field at the time;
• the webmaster for a Bakken discussion group and another blogger first noted what an incredible field this was going to be
• the Charlson is among the handful of early Bakken fields that stood out: Charlson, Parshall, Grail, Sanish
• at one time, the Charlson had bragging rights to the most successful in the Bakken; I think that still holds true but do not quote me on that
• since then there have been more record-setting wells in the Bakken
• for how prolific this field seems to be, it is being drilled out very, very slowly, at least compared to a couple of other fields held by other operators

Disclaimer: in a long note like this there will be typographical and factual errors. There is at least one glaring error in an original source at the NDIC file report which I did not mention. I often see things that do not exist. I did not look at all wells in the immediate area of #26419. There may be other explanations for the huge jump in production. Regardless of the jump in production, the mom-and-pop mineral owners should be thrilled to see this huge jump in production (unless they hate paying more taxes to the IRS and the state of ND). It is very possible I made a very simple error/mistake that completely negates this entire post. I certainly could have mis-identified permit numbers, which I have done before. If so, that's fine; some reader will note it and bring it to my attention. I'm simply trying to better understand the Bakken. For all I know, it was simply a work-over rig or perhaps a small meteor strike.