A reminder: the NDIC now reports natural gas statistics for each well: the amount of natural gas produced by the well; the amount sold, and the amount vented/flared.
In the "old days,"
- MFC produced = MCF sold + vented/flared;
- MFC produced ≠ MCF sold + vented/flared
A reader provides this:
Since the DMR has added the "Flared" column in wells' production profiles, it is now possible to determine how much produced natgas is consumed or re-injected (for gas lift Artificial Lift) for each well/pad.
This is determined by starting with gross production, then subtracting amount sold, then subtracting amount flared.
The remaining balance - if any - should be the amount burned onsite to power compressors and/or generators with the rest being injected back downhole for the now near-ubiquitous (in the Bakken, soon, everywhere) gas lift approach in the Artificial Lift phase.
(There are at least 3 main subsets to this, but I am still trying to gather information).
Bottom line, using the two Lime Rock wells from today - #24511 and #-33634 - one finds: ~500 M cubic feet/month consumed for the former, with ~ 800 M cubic feet/month for the latter.
(I started tracking this months ago with the 500,000 cubic feet per month per well being about average).
Using a VERY generous 'retail' price of $2/mmbtu - essentially $2.00 for every thousand feet of natgas - these operators are 'paying' (to themselves, no less) between $1,000 and $1,600 per MONTH for the use of this natgas.
In reality, these operators - Lime Rock, in this example - are getting FREE fuel for their equipment and re-injection purposes. Equipment seems mainly to consist of the aforementioned compressors and generators.Absolutely fascinating.
Very little info seems to be in the public domain in these matters.
