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 resource plays commercial.
Although the company mainly focuses on the prolific middle Bakken member and the first bench of the Three Forks, it also has acreage that it thinks is very prospective for second bench wells and is working to incorporate the zone into its long-term plan for optimization of its Bakken petroleum system assets in the Williston Basin.
XTO’s production growth in the basin has been impressive and can be attributed both to acquisitions, such as the $2 billion buy of Denbury Resources North Dakota and Montana Bakken assets, and the drill bit, which includes moving into development phase in 2012 and adding drilling rigs. (As of July 1, 2013, it had 10 rigs in North Dakota, where it operates in eight western counties, and one rig in Montana, where it operates in two northeastern counties.)
In the latest monthly report from the state petroleum offices in North Dakota and Montana, XTO ranked as the seventh largest oil producer from the Bakken petroleum system in North Dakota with an average of 36,836 barrels a day, and No. 3 in Montana, with an average output of 5,739 bopd.
Unlike many of the other oil and gas companies doing business in the Williston Basin, XTO says very little publicly about its activities to increase its recoverable reserves in the Bakken, likely because it is the world’s largest publicly traded international oil and gas company, making the Bakken a very small piece of the whole.
