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 percent of its potential locations in the Bakken petroleum system, the Tulsa-based company undertook an infill density project in the second half of the year to help better understand its resource.
The project, which was also referred to as a science pad, aimed to find the “most geologically productive zones,” to “optimize completion designs” and to evaluate ways to increase drilling locations and reserves, WPX President and CEO Ralph Hill said in a third quarter 2012 earnings conference call.
The seven-well program — four in the Bakken and three in the Three Forks — recovered 372 feet of core from the entire Bakken system: “We cored … the upper, the middle, the lower and the Pronghorn (in the Bakken formation). We cored the entire Three Forks formation, all benches, all four benches. We also cored a portion of the Lodgepole and the Birdbear formations. So we have a ton of data that we have that will be coming in. And we had seismic and specialty logs shot obviously during this time,” Hill said, noting some of the initial study results would be in in the first quarter of 2013, but that the project would be “long-term” and produce a “ton of data.”
Optimization in all phases
From a technology viewpoint, WPX is focused on optimization in all phases — drilling, completions and production.
Consequently, Hill said in discussing first quarter 2013 results, the company is really hitting its stride in the Bakken, with everything, including estimated ultimate recoveries for wells, getting better.
“Our Bakken oil production increased 50 percent to 11,500 barrels of oil a day in the first quarter. … Our March production averaged 12,500 barrels of oil per day. Our wells continue to perform at or above expectation,” he said.
In 2012, WPX drilled 41 gross (27 net) wells in the Bakken, or about 7 percent of its total drilling activities. Of the 31 Bakken wells WPX brought online that year, 28 surpassed performance expectations, with many coming in “significantly higher than our type curves” of 800,000 barrels of oil equivalent for the middle Bakken and 600,000 barrels of oil equivalent for the Three Fork, Hill said.
The top 10 performers included four middle Bakken wells averaging some 38 percent above expectations and six Three Forks wells averaging some 14 percent above expectations.
The company has been successfully experimenting with zipper fracs; thus the majority of its future completions will be done with dual/triple zipper fracs, he said.
Another key to the success of its wells, Hill said, is the use of ceramic proppant rather than just sand; in second quarter 2013 WPX’s mix was two-thirds to one-third ceramic to sand.
Although using ceramics adds about $1 million to the cost of a well, Hill said it is a “better performer.”
In early 2013, Bryan K. Guderian, senior vice president of operations for WPX, said the company had completed the improvement efforts it began in mid-2012 for the “full well cycle.”
“We’ve done a number of things on the drilling side, as well as the completion side. I’d say chief among them has been eliminating or greatly reducing trouble time. We have our new rigs in place. We have changed out a number of critical vendors, predominantly with respect to geosteering, which has helped us to keep our well bores in zone, eliminate shale strikes, which is often the … leading issue around problem wells.”
Guderian said WPX had transitioned three of its four rigs to brine drilling, “which allows us to penetrate the well bore more quickly.”
On the completion side, the “big change for us middle of last year was going back to plug-in-perf more traditional type operations. …. I think industry, as a whole, and we were no exceptions, had a number of problems with the sleeves and some operators continued to use them. But now that we’ve transition to pad drilling, we feel like plug-in-perf can be done almost as efficiently as the sliding sleeves and certainly without the risks associated with them.”
All the innovations, he said, are “getting traction.”
WPX, a wholly owned subsidiary of Williams until late 2011, entered the Williston Basin at the end of 2010 with the $949 million acquisition of Dakota-3 E&P Co.
WPX is slated to invest $370 million in Bakken wells in 2013.
