While industry analysts speculate on exactly how falling crude oil prices will affect production in the Bakken, Williston Basin operators nearly doubled the number of new drill spacing units, DSUs, they requested from the North Dakota Industrial Commission in October.
In September, the commission received applications seeking the creation of 67 spacing units. In hearings scheduled for Oct. 29 and 30 in Bismarck, the commission will consider applications seeking the creation of 126 DSUs.
With the exception of six DSUs that Petro Harvester is seeking for Madison formation production in Burke County, the remaining 120 spacing units are for Bakken system production and are clustered in the four traditional Bakken counties of Divide, Dunn, McKenzie and Mountrail with a few in McLean and Stark counties (see map and chart).
Of the 126 spacing units operators are seeking, all but 17 are for overlapping DSUs to allow drilling across section lines of the smaller component spacing units. The spacing units for new development range in size from 390 to 1,280 acres and the overlapping DSUs range in size from 1,280 to 5,120 acres.
The number of wells that operators want to drill on the spacing units range from one to 14; however, several applications don’t specify the number of wells requested but instead simply ask for authorization to drill multiple wells.
Leading in the number of DSUs requested is Whiting Petroleum, filing as Whiting Oil and Gas Corp., which is asking the commission to create 22 overlapping 2,560s, all in the Sanish field, most of which lies in southwest Mountrail County with a portion extending under Lake Sakakawea into northeast McKenzie County (see map).
Right behind Whiting is Continental Resources which filed applications asking for 13 overlapping and five new development spacing units across multiple fields in Williams and Divide counties and ranging in size from 1,920 to 5,120 acres.
Statoil Oil and Gas is asking for 17 overlapping 2,560s in five fields in McKenzie County, and Oxy USA wants 13 overlapping 2,560s in two fields in Dunn County.
American Eagle, Burlington Resources, Emerald Oil, EOG Resources, Fidelity Exploration, Hunt, Kodiak, Newfield, Oasis, Peregrine, QEP, Slawson, Triangle, WPX and XTO all filed applications seeking Bakken system spacing units ranging in size from 640 to 3,840 acres.
The six DSUs that Petro Harvester is asking for in Burke County range in size from 390 to 640 acres, although in its applications the company suggested alternative spacing unit sizes but still maintain the same number of wells per total acreage (see table).
