North Dakota Sets New Production Record -- August 5, 2014

This story (from a different source) was posted earlier, but it's just so much fun to see it in print and to read about it again, I wanted to post it again, this time from a different source.

Rigzone is reporting:

Crude oil production from the Williston Basin’s Bakken and Three Forks formations boosted North Dakota’s crude oil production to a new record of more than 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in April and May of this year. 

Advances in drilling methods and technology, a better understanding of the Bakken’s geology, higher crude oil prices, and the formation’s large size and number of wells have contributed to higher production and potential for future growth, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA)

In June, Wood Mackenzie estimated that 21 billion barrels of light sweet crude oil will ultimately be recovered from the Bakken and Three Forks play, higher than the U.S. Geological Survey’s April 2013 estimate of 7.4 billion barrels.

21 billion bbls.

The original Leigh Price paper: 500 billion bbls original oil in place.

21/500 = 4%

I'm still sticking with 45 billion bbls ultimately recovered in primary production. 

For Newbies, Including Myself -- A Re-Look at the Original Leigh Price Paper -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA -- Part II

The Leigh Price Paper 

Part II

Part I
Part II

The original Leigh Price paper that "predicted" the Bakken boom is chock full of little nuggets.

I've read the paper once before -- maybe three years ago --  and have occasionally gone back and re-read parts of it. I am not a geologist and don't understand much of what was written. But, if read very slowly, literally line-by-line and stopping to think about what Price has just written, one can get a pretty good idea of what he is saying. Actually I'm impressed with how readable it is for a layperson considering the audience.

On page 19 of this 282-page paper, Price begins discussion of the "Fairway" and the heterogeneities of the Bakken as described in an earlier paper.

Local production heterogeneities (e.g., where two spatially-close wells produced vastly different amounts of oil) were assumed to be due to heterogeneities in reservoir geology between the two wells over short lateral distances. [Price's italics.]

Price argues that no proof was offered to support that differences in neighboring wells was due to geology; in contrast, Price shows in this paper that the geology (under discussion) is constant over the entire area of discussion in the Williston Basin. [my bold]

What does that mean? Price agrees that there are "pronounced local and regional production heterogeneities" between Bakken wells "throughout the Bakken HC kitchen."

However, these production heterogeneities appear to be completely due to variable drilling, completion, stimulation, and maintenance procedures applied to different Bakken wells. Application of procedures appropriate to the unique characteristics of the Bakken Source System results in productive wells. Our studies suggest that very rarely does variatio in local geology have any measurable effect on the productivities of Bakken Source System wells. 

As a side note, I've read any number of references to the "Fairway" and I knew its general location, but it was rewarding to find a geologist's description of the Fairway and why it was so named.

For Newbies, Including Myself -- A Re-Look at the Original Leigh Price Paper -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA -- Part I

I've been blogging about the Bakken for about four years now (I deleted my original site and started over with this one), starting with a knowledge level of about two (2) on a scale of 1 to 100. After all this time/blogging I may be up to eight (8) or nine (9) on the 1 to 100 scale.

Someone's comment pushed me to look at the original Leigh Price paper (1999/2000) again which is linked elsewhere at this blog.

A bit lower down, I will quote the opening two paragraphs of that paper. I'm sure I have read this paper several times, certainly the introduction and the summary, but now I find the statements in the paper mean so much to me, and some of the sentences are packed with huge amounts of information, easily overlooked.

Even if you "know" the Bakken well, these opening two paragraphs should still get your attention:

As discussed in section 2.0 [of the research paper to follow], the Williston Basin, the most structurally-simple basin in the world, is characterized by unvarying flat-lying sediments. Most (75%) of the conventional  oil production of this basin is found in the Mississippian mid-Madison limestones, the principal oil reservoir of the basin. Sediment age in the basin ranges from Cambrian to early Tertiary with numerous unconformities present. The lower Mississippian-upper Devonian Bakken Formation contains two black shales, the richest source rocks in the basin, indeed, among the richest source rocks worldwide. The rocks adjacent to the two Bakken shales are organic-poor, carbonate-rich, brittle, low-porosity, impermeable rocks, which, with the two shales, form a tight, closed-fluid system which cannot transmit fluids. These rocks have been termed the "Bakken Source System" (Price and LeFever, 1992).

Due to several unrelated circumstances, the North Dakota portion of the Williston Basin has the best rock, oil, and well-history sample base worldwide. Because of this sample base, and because of the relatively simple geologic history of the basin (compared to many other basins), the Williston Basin is also one of the best-studied petroleum basins worldwide. This unique sample and data base, and the structural simplicity of the Williston Basin, has led to the recognition and delineation of an unconventional base-centered oil-resource base there, possibly 200 - 400 billion barrels in place, the point of this discussion.

Wow.

The general consensus is that with current technology, the operators expect to produce six (6) percent of the original oil in place. Six percent of 400 billion is 24 billion. Harold Hamm has opined that there are 24 billion barrels of recoverable oil from the Bakken, which I believe he includes the Three Forks. When one does the math, EURs and the number of wells proposed for the Bakken, the number also approaches 20 billion bbls of recoverable oil. It is my understanding that EURs are primary production numbers. I believe I have seen a Denbury presentation in which the company opines that a similar amount of oil can be produced through secondary and/or tertiary production (I forget the actual presentation) as in primary production.

Just some idle rambling, that last paragraph. Those first two Price paragraphs are the "wow's" for me this morning.