Sand Creek Update -- March 12, 2020

Two things happened almost simultaneously. Okay, three things:

• Oasis with two new permits in Sand Creek;
• a reader suggested I take another look at Sand Creek; and, 
• I noted the other day that Sand Creek is really turning out to be a great field. I had kind of forgotten about Sand Creek but it, too, is going to be a monster.

There are so many great fields in the Bakken, some get lost in the shuffle. 

Those are the fields to watch during the 2020 oil shock-market meltdown.

Oil companies really, really try to optimize their plays, manage their assets. The last thing they want to do is deplete their great plays. Once found, oil companies want to minimize efforts that would needlessly deplete their great plays and focus on looking for new big plays -- either through exploration or acquisition.

Just as we saw in the trillion-dollar mistake back in 2014, with the 2020 oil shock-market meltdown, we're going to see the same thing: a circling of wagons and laser-like focus on biggest bang for the buck.

One casualty, if one wants to call it a casualty, is that operators will now go back into fields like the Sand Creek and deplete them, wishing they did not have to do that.

I am in the process of updating Sand Creek but even now, scrolling through the status of the permits in Sand Creek, one can see how much work is left to be done.

Case study, #19889:

• see this post; and this post; 

The well:

• 19889, 1,678, XTO, Sand Creek 21-10SH, 33-053-03348, Sand Creek oil field, section 10-153-96, t5/11; cum 596K 1/20; in its ninth year of production; FracFocus suggests no re-frack; I haven't checked the NDIC file report recently; 

Production at time of first frack:

BAKKEN	10-2011	10	11805	12016	4121	28294	6	28288
BAKKEN	9-2011	30	9812	9782	1167	15754	1946	13808
BAKKEN	8-2011	31	12756	12812	1729	21484	3769	17715
BAKKEN	7-2011	31	13451	13051	1969	22463	7803	14660
BAKKEN	6-2011	30	15454	15441	2314	22342	7150	15192
BAKKEN	5-2011	29	16103	16173	3531	19006	8770	10236
BAKKEN	4-2011	22	1423	749	4996	3268	0	3268

Production five years later, no re-frack?

BAKKEN	12-2016	22	17348	17108	5147	34070	32848	486
BAKKEN	11-2016	30	21723	21761	10309	42107	39288	2010
BAKKEN	10-2016	31	29517	29368	12447	54910	43060	11010
BAKKEN	9-2016	27	27197	27115	11042	47620	31545	15717
BAKKEN	8-2016	31	28192	28074	10834	53086	51158	1737
BAKKEN	7-2016	24	22225	22257	17252	35045	25010	9907
BAKKEN	6-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	5-2016	1	7	444	0	1	0	0
BAKKEN	4-2016	29	2595	2275	395	3760	2758	295

Recent production:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	1-2020	31	1991	2129	1570	18808	18004	0
BAKKEN	12-2019	31	1980	1879	1516	19956	19135	0
BAKKEN	11-2019	30	1938	2121	1347	12730	6044	5905
BAKKEN	10-2019	31	1657	1376	1421	10818	8672	1299
BAKKEN	9-2019	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	8-2019	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	7-2019	11	196	244	150	2181	1972	0
BAKKEN	6-2019	30	1844	2051	1450	16481	15807	0
BAKKEN	5-2019	31	2412	2383	1552	15904	13601	1554
BAKKEN	4-2019	16	1132	966	851	7882	4838	2657
BAKKEN	3-2019	5	0	0	0	260	254	0
BAKKEN	2-2019	11	409	663	252	2580	1160	1150
BAKKEN	1-2019	31	1525	1813	985	9964	8486	654

Pop quiz: when you scroll through the Sand Creek permits, what do you notice, what pops up immediately?

Answer: the field is not "owned' by any one operator. Numerous operators in that field, and not just small players, but some of the biggest players in the Bakken, in no particular order, just scrolling through the list:

• Newfield
• BR
• XTO
• Whiting
• Oasis
• Slawson