Is Kraken The Next Slawson? February 4, 2022

I track Kraken here, albeit not doing a good job. Yet. 

After my response to a reader regarding Kraken yesterday (link pending), another reader wrote:

We now have [x] wells with them in Williams County. Their returns have been absolutely fantastic. The production from their wells have far outpaced the production from the CLR wells previously drilled in neighboring pools. Hope they stick around!

My not-ready-for-prime-time reply with some additional material:

Yes, I'm sure Kraken is going to stick around. My hunch is they will add acreage in Williams County. They got a ton of cash from selling assets in the Sanish.

I find the Kraken fascinating.

When I started the blog, the EOG wells in the Sanish were said to be the "be-all, end-all" -- the best wells ever. I posted that often. Then EOG and the Sanish sort of went away.

I got the feeling, just before Mark Papa left EOG, he (and his company) never really understood the Bakken (as in "unconventional play") at the time. They learned a lot in the Bakken but saw greener pastures in the Permian and never optimized what they had in the Permian. Oasis followed suit but realized their mistake and came back as a pure-play Bakken operator.

Whiting seems to be hit-and-miss with wells, but Kraken -- every well is a winner, though they don't have nearly as many as some of the other operators.

Every year it seems like another operator steps up and surprises me. This year, it's Kraken. One year it was NOG (and they are still surprising me).

MRO is a perennial favorite.