Complete PDF Edition
Petroleum News Bakken
Week of August 11, 2013
QEP’s good buy
Since acquiring its South Antelope acreage in eastern McKenzie County last year, QEP Energy is finding the property to be every bit as productive as anticipated when the acquisition was announced. When the Denver-based independent announced the acquisition in August of 2012, it reported an average e....
Kodiak: ‘We are excited’
Kodiak Oil & Gas Corp. stopped short of declaring its crucial well down-spacing program a success, cautioning analysts and others not to overplay initial production results from one of its two crucial Williston Basin pilot projects, until more production data can be collected and analyzed. And that....
Dividing and conquering
TransCanada has announced it has enough binding, 20-year shipping contracts to launch Energy East, its C$12 billion venture spanning 2,700 miles from the Alberta oil sands to New Brunswick, possibly picking up Bakken crude along the way.
The crude could serve as feedstock for refineries in Ontario,....
Southwestern Energy moving on from Bakken, Sheridan County
In an Aug. 2 conference discussing second-quarter financial and operating results, Southwestern Energy Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President William Way said the company had concluded testing of its second Bakken well and added that the company was disappointed with the test results a....
Oil Patch Insider: Correction on Apache map story: We can’t have it both ways
last week we reported that the 60-some rigs shown on an Apache Corp. NW Montana map could not have been rigs, but at the end of the piece we said the rigs could possibly have been wells.
However, earlier in the Insider piece we said they probably weren’t wells, which was incorrect.
Our apologies.
W....
SM Energy’s trends continue
SM Energy continues to see steady increases in its quarterly Bakken/Three Forks production while at the same time is seeing its average cost per well decrease as its transition to pad drilling continued in the second quarter.
Information released on July 31 indicate SM Energy’s second-quarter Bakke....
EOG Bakken ROR hits 100 percent
Thanks to “having the best acreage,” the “best in-house completion technology” and “lower cost” wells, EOG Resources now gets more than a 100 percent “direct after-tax reinvestment rate-of-return” in three “premier” U.S. resource plays — the Eagle Ford, Bakken and Leonard.
Calling the three plays E....
Montana’s July apps focus on Elm Coulee
With up to 33 new wells, Statoil leads the list of operators filing applications in July with the Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation seeking authority to drill additional Bakken/Three Forks wells in the Bakken petroleum system on existing spacing units. All applications are on the board’s Aug....
Horizontal wells break records
Although first-half well completions across Canada lagged 8.8 percent behind the same period last year, horizontal drilling in three of the four western provinces set new records.
Overall, the industry posted 3,813 development completions and 485 exploratory wells (excluding experimental wells), lag....
Survey shows Bakken impact in Grand Forks
Grand Forks, N.D. area businesses are growing to meet demands in the Bakken region of North Dakota, the region’s chamber of commerce said in an Aug. 6 press release.
The Chamber – Grand Forks/East Grand Forks, on behalf of the region’s Bakken Initiative, surveyed its members, revealing that business....
Statoil’s Bakken output holding steady
Norwegian-based Statoil released second-quarter production data on July 25, and the results indicate the company’s Bakken production from the Bakken petroleum system basically held steady through the first two quarters of 2013, but was down slightly from the fourth quarter of 2012.
Statoil’s daily....
Slick water fracks: Halcon game changer
Halcon Resources saw marked improvements in its initial production rates on some of its Williston Basin wells in the second quarter, and the company attributes the increase to changes in completion techniques, particularly in hydraulic fracturing.
In an Aug. 1 press release, Halcon said that the “p....
Montana well permits, completions
Abbreviations & parameters
With a few exceptions, the Montana weekly oil activity report includes horizontal well activity in the Bakken petroleum system in the eastern/northeastern part of the state within the Williston Basin. It also includes the Heath play and what is referred to as the South Alb....
Statoil takes No. 1 ND IP position; Burlington gets Camel Butte permits
For the fourth week in a row Statoil has taken the No. 1 spot on the Top 10 IP chart for North Dakota wells producing from the Bakken petroleum system, which includes formations such as the Bakken and Three Forks.
IP, which stands for initial production, is the rate at which a well produces during i....
North Dakota oil permit activity
Subscribers: To view the "North Dakota oil permit activity" chart, please visit the above PDF link.....
IPs for ND Bakken wells
Subscribers: To view the "IPs for North Dakota Bakken wells" chart, please visit the above PDF link.....
PetroShale implements new corporate structure
On Aug. 6, Calgary-based PetroShale Inc. said it has implemented a new corporate structure for its Denver-based U.S. subsidiary, PetroShale (US) Inc., in which two wholly-owned subsidiaries of PetroShale (US) were created. One of the new subsidiaries is a holding firm for proved producing assets, wh....
ConocoPhillips on track after wet spring
While heavy rains and flooding impacted ConocoPhillips’ second-quarter activity in the Williston Basin, the company still managed to increase production by approximately 3.4 percent over the first quarter of the year with an average production of 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
According....
WSJ: Zenergy’s ND assets on block
The Wall Street Journal reported that Zenergy Inc. has enlisted bankers to shop its North Dakota acreage, which would likely fetch more than $1 billion if sold, according to the Journal’s sources.
As of press date, the morning of Aug. 8, Zenergy had not yet publicly, or in response to a phone call....
Oil Patch Bits: Halcon Resources to present at EnerCom’s conference
Halcon Resources Corp. said that Floyd C. Wilson, chairman and CEO, is scheduled to present at EnerCom’s The Oil & Gas Conference 18 in Denver, Colo., on Aug. 13 at 3:30 p.m. EDT.
The slide presentation and a link to the live audio webcast will be available on the company’s website at www.halconreso....
Oil Patch Bits: Quality Mat helped complete a $75,000 fundraiser
Quality Mat said June 28 that it was pleased to feature Young Life in Southeast Texas as its nonprofit organization of the month. Young Life is an organization of caring adults committed to reaching out to kids and being involved in their lives in a variety of ways. That involvement takes many forms....
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Oil Patch Bits: Quality Mat helped complete a $75,000 fundraiser
Welcome to the first annual edition of The Bakken Explorers magazine, brought to you by Petroleum News Bakken, a weekly newspaper that covers oil and gas activity in the Bakken petroleum system of the Williston Basin.
It will be the can-do attitudes of the basin’s explorers that continue to break th....
Oil Patch Bits: Quality Mat helped complete a $75,000 fundraiser
Industry representatives polled more than a year ago by Petroleum News accurately predicted that the federal government would end up at least doubling the amount of crude oil that could be technically recovered from the U.S. portion of the Bakken petroleum system.
That’s largely because the 2008 stu....
Oil Patch Bits: Quality Mat helped complete a $75,000 fundraiser
Within the Bakken petroleum system, Sheridan County, Montana’s most northeastern county bordering both North Dakota and Saskatchewan, tends to stay off of most people’s radar. However, Sheridan has seen its share of oil and gas activity over the years, and activity in the county, both conventional a....
Oil Patch Bits: Quality Mat helped complete a $75,000 fundraiser
Talk to anyone who knows anything about exploration for oil in the Williston Basin and the name Slawson will invariably come up. Since drilling its first well in the Williston Basin in the 1970s, Slawson Exploration has become an industry leader in exploring new frontiers and has developed a reputa....
Oil Patch Bits: Quality Mat helped complete a $75,000 fundraiser
Two companies lead the pack in western fringe exploration of the Williston Basin’s Bakken petroleum system — Marathon Oil and TAQA North USA, which have been drilling wells in the eastern half of Sheridan County, west of North Dakota’s Divide County (see story on page 12). Even farther west, in Dani....
Oil Patch Bits: Quality Mat helped complete a $75,000 fundraiser
Continental Resources is contemplating skyward adjustments of recoverable reserves estimates in the Bakken petroleum system based on a massive revision in the company’s oil in-place estimate. The company plans to make revisions of its recoverable reserves estimates in late 2013 at soonest, once it c....
Oil Patch Bits: Quality Mat helped complete a $75,000 fundraiser
Calgary-based Crescent Point Energy, a trailblazer in the use of horizontal drilling and multistage fracturing to commercialize Saskatchewan’s tight-oil plays, is working on twin-pronged objectives — waterflooding and unitization — to increase recoverable reserves in its U.S. and Canada Williston Ba....
Whiting looks to exploit more zones
Whiting Petroleum’s field strategy in the Williston Basin is to look for two types of development opportunities: one, new zones to exploit in and outside of the Bakken petroleum system, and; two, increasing the density of wells on existing production.
Whiting had record production during the 2013 f....
Whiting looks to exploit more zones
While Fidelity Exploration & Production Co.’s 2012 exploration in Richland County, Mont. was initially focused on the Three Forks formation, drilling data shifted efforts to the upper Bakken shale, eventually making Fidelity the second Williston Basin operator to produce oil from actual shale with h....
Whiting looks to exploit more zones
Halcon Resources Corp. is finding success in the Williston Basin as the company carries out a drilling and completion modification program.
Halcon adopted the use of ceramic proppant in its Fort Berthold area wells, the company said in a June operational update, and the well results beat out any pri....
Whiting looks to exploit more zones
Kodiak Oil & Gas Corp. has observed evidence of “communication” between Bakken wells during fracture stimulation and it said it will revise well-completion procedures to strengthen production of nearby wells and increase recoverable reserves.
“With this approach we are seeing a positive response fro....
Whiting looks to exploit more zones
One year ago EOG Resources Inc. thought Bakken production was on the wane but due to the magic of downspacing — and its success in non-core areas — the company is singing Bakken’s praises once again.
“We’re considerably more optimistic about the next 10 years of this play than we were a year ago,” E....
Whiting looks to exploit more zones
Although Denver-based Triangle Petroleum has an acreage position in Montana that is on the northwestern flank of the Williston Basin, adjacent to the Elm Coulee field, the company is going to keep an eye on what larger companies are doing in the region before it initiates its own drilling program.
....
Whiting looks to exploit more zones
Newfield Exploration’s claim to Bakken explorer status in the Williston Basin is due, first, to its testing of the lower benches of the Three Forks formation within the Bakken petroleum system and, second, to its strides in the application of technology to increase recoveries of oil in place in both....
Whiting looks to exploit more zones
In first quarter 2013, Oasis Petroleum cored through the lower benches of the Three Forks formation in the Bakken petroleum system and conducted enhanced log analyses for six pilot test wells that the company is planning to drill into the lower benches.
Oasis Executive Vice President and Chief Oper....
Whiting looks to exploit more zones
Lightstream Resources, a frontrunner in successfully tapping the Bakken petroleum system in Saskatchewan, has examined three “tried and true” enhanced oil recovery concepts in the Bakken — waterflooding, natural gas flooding and carbon dioxide flooding — and concluded that CO2 is “probably the best....
Whiting looks to exploit more zones
Since acquiring Brigham Oil and Gas in 2011, Norway-based Statoil has been establishing itself as a major player in the U.S. Williston Basin. But with decades of experience in global offshore development, Statoil has a slightly different philosophy when it comes to onshore production. Moving slower....
Whiting looks to exploit more zones
WPX Energy is increasing its recoverable reserves through technological innovation and a search for the most geologically productive zones in its 84,205 net acres in North Dakota’s Williston Basin, a chunk of which lies within the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.
In mid-2012, having drilled only 10....
Whiting looks to exploit more zones
As of the end of May 2013, there were only 11 producing oil wells in the lower Three Forks formation within the Bakken petroleum system in the Williston Basin.
One of those wells was drilled by XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil with a 25-year track record of studying and making unconventional....
Whiting looks to exploit more zones
Most Bakken petroleum system oil in the Williston Basin is currently produced from the middle Bakken tight oil reservoir, consisting of an interbedded sequence of siliciclastics and carbonates that is sandwiched between two zones of shale, the most common source rock worldwide for petroleum. There i.... | |