Folks Waiting For The Rocky Ridge-Fritz / Tyler Will Have To Wait A Bit Longer; Link Back To MRO Tyler Wells In Slope County

The first of four in this area:

• 25347, drl, Williston Exploration, Rocky Ridge-Fritz 1, Rocky Ridge, Heath, t-- 

From an earlier post:

Williston Exploration is drilling a well in this same field, at the northwest end of the field:

• 25347, conf-->rig on site-->conf, Williston Exploration, Rocky Ridge-Fritz 1,

That's all interesting, but if one is reading the tea leaves, this is the most interesting bit of trivia. Near this Rocky Ridge-Fritz 1 well, they are also drilling a SWD well which is also on the confidential list. The arrow in the image points to the SWD (on confidential list). It's my impression after following the Bakken boom for the past several years, they don't drill SWD wells just anywhere; this to me suggests they think they will be doing a lot of drilling in this area.

Two More Montana Permits Targeting The Heath

Link here to Fairfield Sun Times.

Pretty much for archival purposes only. 

Magic Maps: Currently Off-Line

NOTE: MagicMaps is currently off-line and may/may not be back. In addition to NDIC GIS maps server, North Dakota Rigs Map is also available. 

Mini-Bakken in Montana's Heath Formation?

One of the problems with a "Bakken blog" there is absolutely so much information posted, one cannot easily keep track of everything.

The "Data Links" page (a tab at the top of the blog) has scores of great links. Back in December, I mentioned a great application for finding any well or any rig in the Bakken:

• Magic Maps

In addition, there is a way to combine this application with Google Earth:

• Magic Maps and Google Earth

Currently Magic Maps maps the Bakken wells and rigs. The developer says that in the near future he will be adding Montana wells to the application. If everything goes as planned, the Montana database should be on-line around April 1, 2012. 

• See comments for updates and details.

With indications that oil activity is increasing in Montana, this is great news. There are three areas to be aware of in Montana.

We already know about the North Dakota Bakken on the Montana side of the state line.

In addition, there is the Alberta Bakken in north-central Montana.

Earlier today, a reader mentioned to me that Halliburton has acquired space in/near Lewistown, Montana, and there are reports that drillers will soon be targeting the Heath formation somewhere between Lewistown and Jordan, Montana. The story was covered in the Missoulian back on February 5, 2012.

Talk of a "mini Bakken" beneath this windswept plain has the 350 people of Jordan talking big.

"My daughter thinks we're going to be the next Williston," said Janet Sherer. "I hope not. I'm not ready for that."

Williston, the western North Dakota community at the heart of the Bakken oil boom, has become the town to which everyone points when discussing a potential central Montana oil play. The North Dakota community was a quiet farm town until petroleum engineers cracked the combination to oil trapped in a shale formation thousands of feet below. The once seemingly played-out region now rivals Alaska's oil production. Locals fortunate enough to have coveted mineral rights are awash in royalties. The black gold rush is on.

Central Montanans from Lewistown to Jordan also have a seemingly played-out oil field. "The Heath" as it's called in these parts, is a shale formation 250 miles wide from east to west and 150 miles from north to south.

Completely unrelated to these three oil plays, there is a huge natural gas industry in Montana; I do not know if these wells will be in the Magic Maps database.

The Heath/Tyler Formation: Another North Dakota Formation Ripe for Unconventional Exploitation? -- October 1, 2010

Locator: 10001TYLER.

 

SOURCES

Stratigraphic study, UND, 2017.

USGS assessment, summer, 2017.

Geo News (official ND publication): history of horizontal drilling in the Tyler, January, 2012 
ND DMR presentation, 2012 (PDF)

• https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/newsletter/2012%20January/History%20of%20Horizontal%20Drilling%20in%20the%20Tyler%20Formation,%20ND.pdf

Geo News (official ND publication): Review the Resource Potential of the Pennsylvania Tyler Formation, January 2011, Geo News, January, 2011 (PDF)

• https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/newsletter/Jan%202011/Winter%202010-2011%20Tyler.pdf

ND DMR presentation, November 1, 2011 (PDF) -- apparently this one has been removed
Central Montana Heath Geology Report (PDF, could take a moment to download).
Short blurb on the Heath/Tyler in central Montana, book,1994.
Nice map (regional link may break).
Some "monster" Heath/Tyler wells
In central Montana: maybe not so good

NEWS

Tuesday, June 6, 2023: White Rock Oil & Gas to re-complete a Madison well as a dual Madison / Tyler well.

Wednesday, April 7, 2021:

• 37858, drl/drl, Red Trail Energy LLC, RTE 10.2, wildcat, formation target: AMSDEN; SWNW 10-139-92; see graphics below. Note: Amsden, Tyler, Heath -- perhaps not for purists, and not to be taken out of context -- these three formations are pretty much different names for the same general formation. See this post.

October 4, 2019: a Tyler/Heath re-entry well in the southwest corner of the state of North Dakota?

December 29, 2013: Williston Exploration will target the Tyler in acreage previously controlled by Chesapeake in southwest North Dakota. At the same link: 21589, Petro-Hunt, Clear Creek-Tyler, redefine field limits, rules, McKenzie.

October 3, 2013: the significance of MRO targeting the Tyler.

September 26, 2013: MRO has rig-on-site targeting the Tyler; far southwest corner of the state.

Marathon Oil provides some of this information which came from a reader, unidentified source.

• 1280-acre spacing in Slope County
• lateral lengths of 4,500 feet to 10,000 feet; vertical depth of about 7,500 feet
• EURs: 380,000
• 36°API, similar to sweet Bakken crude, which ranges between 36-44°API
• USGS Tyler conventional estimates: 15 million bbls 
• USGS has not provided estimate of unconventional Tyler potential

June 27, 2013: musings on Chesapeake, Marathon, the Tyler formation, and Slope County. 

March 15, 2013: Heath/Tyler in Montana not panning out. 

November 24, 2012: a Platts update of the Tyler.

June 7, 2012: Statoil partners with Cirque Resources, LP, in Heath formation, Montana; 

April 19, 2012: Denbury re-completes a Madison well --> Tyler.

March 21, 2012: Is Chesapeake ready to target the Heath/Tyler?

November 1, 2011: Are they paying $14,000/acre in southwestern North Dakota for the Three Forks?

October 20, 2011: Back in the news. 

May 15, 2011: More on the Heath (Montana) which probably is an extension from the Tyler (North Dakota). 

January 1, 2011: Peer-Reviewed Article on the Tyler.

November 17, 2010: EUR for a Tyler well? 200,000 barrels with old technology. Here we go.

November 17, 2010: Leasing begins in the Tyler formation. Here we go.

November 17, 2010: Good, but not as good as the Bakken. 

The Original Post
Updated 

Update of the Tyler formation here, January 8, 2018.

Location of the Tyler Formation

Average TOC for the Tyler: 1.39% (better than Saudi Arabia) but not as good as the Bakken's 11%!  The best Tyler is in McKenzie County, almost the same location as the Bakken bull's eye; in McKenzie County, the TOC for the Tyler is an incredible 4.0 to 5.0 percent.  See ND DMR slide presentation, slide #13.

January, 2011 Article

This is a much more interesting article than I first thought when I rushed over it this morning.  [As noted in earlier posts, many stories in "local" newspapers are removed from the web or require a paid subscription. This article is an example. As of October 8, it was already removed, but the following is the gist of the story.]

The Director, North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC) says the Tyler formation is yet another known formation that may be amenable to horizontal drilling and fracturing.

That is not a trivial statement.

The Tyler formation accounts for about one percent of the total amount of oil produced in North Dakota. That compares to the Birdbear which has produced almost an identical amount (one percent of total North Dakota production). The Bakken, or course, will far surpass those numbers someday, but at the moment the Bakken is responsible for only six (6) percent of the total amount of oil that has been produced in North Dakota. The Madison formation has produced 51 percent of the total North Dakota oil.

The Tyler formation, according to Helms extends well past the North Dakota borders, west into Montana and south into South Dakota. Based on stratigraphic maps, the Tyler formation may be even thicker than the Bakken in some areas.

If you are interested in looking at the Tyler formation, simply "google" it. You will be surprised by the number of hits.

In addition to the comments about the Tyler formation, the director reiterated how long he thinks active drilling will continue:

Helms said officials estimate about 2,000 wells per year will be drilled in the Bakken and Three Forks formations, consuming 23 million gallons of water per day, continuing for close to 20 years.

This jibes with a previously posted scientific paper on a basic analysis of the Bakken in which the authors suggest that active drilling will continue through 2030 and these wells will be producing through 2100.

This story is centered around Dickinson, ND. For more on Dickinson (Stark County) story, click here.

[Idle chatter: who would have guessed ten years ago that the US would literally be swimming in natural gas in 2010. Wouldn't it be interesting if horizontal drilling and fracturing vastly increased the total oil production in the lower 48 states ten years from now? The peak oil theorists will disagree.]