Whiting's Lewis and Clark Prospect -- Three Forks, North Dakota, USA

On October 31, 2010, I posted a blog about a "flurry of activity" in the Belfield, North Dakota, area.

That flurry of activity started with the first and only set of traffic lights in the city of Belfield. When traffic lights cost a million dollars to install, small towns don't take these installations lightly.

Today, that "flurry of activity" and that first set of traffic lights has a name: the Lewis and Clark prospect. WLL's most recent corporate presentation sheds light on this prospect:

• Its objective is the Three Forks formation
• It consists of 360K gross/235K net acres; 164 1280-acre units
• 12 wells in 2010; 46 in 2011
• $280 million CAPEX in 2011

From the 4Q10, earnings call:

• Based on Whiting’s evaluations, we believe there has been partial pressure depletion from Upper Bakken Shale wells drilled in this area in the 1980s and 1990s. We believe that approximately 2% of our acreage at Lewis & Clark could potentially be affected.
• Whiting completed the Teddy 44-13H with an initial production rate of 381 BOE per day from the Three Forks. We believe that this well frac’d into a water-bearing zone. The company will modify its frac design for future wells drilled in this area.
• Also of note, our Federal 32-4H discovery well produced a total of 66,300 BOE during its first six months of production, which ended May 25, 2010. Although this is a Three Forks well, it would rank the well among the top 15% of all Bakken wells drilled in North Dakota in terms of first six months total production based on information from the North Dakota Industrial Commission.
• Whiting recently broke ground for the construction of a gas processing plant at Lewis & Clark. The Belfield Gas Plant, located near Belfield, North Dakota, will have an initial inlet capacity of 30 MMcf of gas per day and is expected to be completed in November 2011. To reduce the volume of gas being flared in the Lewis & Clark area, we are in the process of installing equipment to compress the natural gas into vessels that can be trucked to the nearest gas plant. Our Belfield plant will have the capability to accept trucked gas. 

For newbies: the Williston Basin extends into South Dakota, but the Bakken Pool only extends as far south as southwestern North Dakota. The Bakken Pool includes the Bakken formation and the Three Forks formation. I don't know who called it first, but someone (either WLL or CLR; I think it was WLL) noted that there was a "pinchout" of the Three Forks in southwestern North Dakota, near Belfield. The "pinchout'" is an area where the Three Forks formation has "pinched out" farther south than the Bakken, and that's where WLL is now concentrating with the Lewis and Clark prospect.

In addition, just across a geologic line, southwest to the Lewis and Clark prospect, is Whiting's "Big Island" prospect. This is a lot smaller in terms of net acres for WLL. Right now, WLL's corporate presentation is vague on the "Big Island." WLL says there are "multiple objectives" for the "Big Island; WLL will drill just one well in this prospect in 2011, with a CAPEX of $4 million. A horizontal well costs $8 million, so a $4 million CAPEX on one well suggests a vertical. Maybe they are targeting the Lodgepole.

Flurry of Whiting Activity North of Belfield (Bakken, ND, USA) -- Lewis and Clark Prospect -- WLL

I am told that there are now traffic lights about a half-mile north of Belfield, about a half-mile north of I-94 where a county road intersects US Highway 85 (the north-south highway into Belfield). These are the first and only traffic lights in Belfield; if you want to see the next nearest traffic lights you have to drive to Dickinson, Williston, or Baker (Montana).

Unless there is some significantly increased traffic at this intersection, on first look it seems to be an unusual spot for first-ever traffic signals in Belfield.

A bit to the northwest, Whiting has recently opened a new prospect: their Lewis and Clark prospect which, according to a recent Whiting presentation, is centered around the Bicentennial field. The Lewis and Clark prospect is where the Three Folks pinches out -- or extends -- from the Bakken formation.

But the Bicentennial is quite a ways from the traffic lights just north of Belfield. Is something else going on?

Looking at the NDIC GIS map server just a couple miles to the east of this new traffic signal, I notice a rig on site, with permit number 99189, Mann 33-18. That's a very, very unusual permit number. In fact, it is the only 99XXX permit held by Whiting. It turns out it is a stratigraphic well. It is located in the four-section oil field called North Creek. Meanwhile in that same section (18-140-98) Whiting has almost completed another well, permit 19337, Mann 21-18TFH, a wildcat, even though it is sitting in a designated field.

Just to the west of this well, in section 13-140-99, is another Whiting well, on the confidential list, #18837, Kubas 11-13TFH, a wildcat.  It's another Three Forks well and is listed as "plugged or producing" on the NDIC website, as of September 29, 2010.

Less than a mile west of the Kubas well, closer to US Highway 85, is Whiting's permit 19819, another wildcat, Lydia 21-14TFH, and another Three Forks well.

Three miles and four miles to the west, on the other side of US Highway 85, are two more wildcats, #19623 and #19444, Obrigewitch 21-17TFH and Hecker 21-18TFH, both Whiting wells and both wildcats.

One last well to take a look at. This is another Whiting well, #19562, Brueni 28-1H. The Brunei is in the opposite direction, two miles southeast of the stratigraphic well, towards South Heart where there has been a flurry of activity lately. It does not have the TFH designation, so I assume it's a Bakken well, but don't know for sure. It would make more sense for it to be a TFS well. We'll see.

It doesn't take much to get my mind imagining things. In this case, the new traffic lights just a half mile north of Belfield, along with the only stratigraphic well that Whiting currently is drilling, and a number of wildcats in the immediate area targeting the Three Forks area suggest to me that a) Whiting is looking to find the southeastern limits of their Lewis and Clark prospect; and, b) Whiting is looking at putting in an operations center of some sort north of Belfield.

Updates

April 28, 2011: 19444, 3,106, WLL, Hecker 21-18TFH, huge story, click on link

February 26, 2011: WLL corporate presentation. This "flurry of activity" is now called the Lewis and Clark prospect by Whiting. Its objective is the Three Forks formation. It consists of 360K gross/235K net acres; 164 1280-acre units; 12 wells in 2010; 46 in 2011; $280 million CAPEX in 2011

November 2, 2010: This is most interesting. I posted the above on October 31, 2010. Just two days later there's a story in the Dickinson Press that Whiting is requesting Belfield to rezone agricultural land near Belfield to industrial use. The article did not say where the area of interest is, but it doesn't take a lot of imagination to think it might be a half-mile north of Belfield, where the city put in their first set of traffic lights.