Denver, We Have A Problem -- An Explanation For Initial Production Data For Petroshale Wells In Bear Den? March 20, 2022

Pressed for time, I'm only going to look at FracFocus for one of the four Petroshale wells coming off the confidential list this week. I assume the data is similar for all four wells.

As mentioned earlier, the initial production data for these four wells was not encouraging. The Bear Den oil field is a good-to-great field and I expected more of these wells. If, indeed, they turn out to be less than spectacular, it suggests completion issues: either execution or amount of proppants/water.

So, let's look at the frack data from FracFocus. FracFocus does not include the number of stages.

This was the best of the four Petroshale wells coming off the confidential list this next week.

The well:

• 36893, conf, Petroshale, Crockett Federal 1TFH, Bear Den, 33-053-09187:
  

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
1-2022	12552	0

FracFocus: link here.

• 4.7 million gallons of water;
• 84.6% water by mass

Wow, wow, wow. That may be the answer. An incredibly small frack. I expect to see 10 million gallons of water for a frack when I check FracFocus these days. Some operators are doing well with 7 million gallons of water, but some are doing as much as 14 million gallons of water. A 4-handle water frack takes us back to the early days of the Bakken when BEXP first started doing "big" fracks. [For newbies: BEXP was bought by Statoil, which changed its name to Equinor, which was bought by Grayson Mill Operating, LLC.]

So, let's take a look at another Petroshale well that was completed in December, 2019, just before the pandemic lock down.

The well:

• 36318, 392, Petroshale, Anderson North 2MBH, Croff, 33-053-09024, t10/19; cum 51K 1/20; cum 290K 1/22; a relatively nice well:
  

FracFocus,

• fracked, August 21, 2019 - September 16, 2019 (and that was a long-duration frack)
• 7.7 million gallons of water
• 86.9% water by mass

Wow, wow, wow. Yes, I know. Only two wells, and two different oil fields, but those were the first two I checked. 

The amount of water used is in direct proportion to the amount of sand (proppant) used, so along with the differences in the amount of water used, Petroshale used, perhaps, half of the amount of sand in the well coming off the confidential list this next week compared to the amount of sand used in 2019 before sand prices spiked.

If this is accurate, and, of course I'm not saying it is, the next question follows: if there is a problem with sourcing frack sand (or other problems related to fracking) is it better to complete a well while prices are high with a half-ass completion, or should the operator wait for "better" sourcing times and hope oil prices remain high.

Another observation: those operators with keep pockets (CLR, Hess, MRO) continue to report great wells. 

Another company that reported less-than-stellar initial production data for a well coming off the confidential list this next week was Enerplus. I don't have the time to look at that one yet. 

Anyway, this may be completely wrong, but I do get a kick out of starting something.

Oh, one other thing. This has nothing to do with water shortage in the Bakken. There is a drought in North Dakota -- along with much of the rest of the country -- but there should be plenty of water. I could be wrong on this also, but I've run the numbers before and water is not a legitimate issue in the Bakken, at least compared to all the other issues.