When asked what effect the lower benches of the Three Forks dolomite formation could have on overall North Dakota oil production during the North Dakota Oil and Gas Division’s monthly press conference on June 14, Director Lynn Helms said that recent modeling suggests that long-term recoveries from the Three Forks could be much higher than initially thought.
Helms said that based on preliminary results from both private and state models, he believes that production curves for the lower benches of the Three Forks formation, which is part of the Bakken petroleum system, will extend out farther than originally estimated.
“So in other words, we don’t think that the natural production is going to go a lot higher than what the current models say,” Helms said. “But we think that the lower benches of the Three Forks are going to result in that peak being really extended. So that instead of hitting a peak and it dropping off, starting to decline in a year or two, we could see a decade of those kind of production numbers.”
As Petroleum News Bakken reported earlier in June, the North Dakota Industrial Commission approved a grant of $8 million to the North Dakota Oil and gas Research Council to help fund a $115 million, three-year project to evaluate exploration and production in the various benches of the Three Forks formation in the Williston Basin. The project, which will focus on exploring Three Forks reserves, determining optimal Bakken pool well densities and optimizing Bakken production, will be conducted in McKenzie County.
Helms said industry is picking up the additional $107 million needed to fund the project.
And while it is very early in terms of how many wells and what the overall potential is going to be, the preliminary results are exciting.
“I just met with a couple of operators last week and they’re both looking at deeper Three Forks benches, and industry has got a lot of plans ongoing with regards to infill drilling and development.”
—Mike Ellerd
