Evolution continues

Densities could reach 24 wells per pad; 6,000 wells over next 3 years

Mike Ellerd

For Petroleum News Bakken

During an April 16 press conference, Lynn Helms, director of the Oil and Gas Division of North Dakota Industrial Commission’s Department of Mineral Resources, took a few minutes to talk about the rapid shift to multi-well pad operations in the state. He said that in 2012 the division issued 530 orders approving multi-well drilling, and had an additional 334 applications the orders for which have not yet been signed, bringing the total number of multi-well pad cases heard in 2012 and early 2013 to 864.

Helms said the number of wells per pad typically ranges from six to eight, with seven wells per pad being the most popular. At seven wells per pad, those 864 multi-well cases, he said, works out to approximately 6,000 wells that the industry is proposing. But he estimates that it will take approximately three years to get those 6,000 wells drilled and completed. “So just with what we have on the table will keep our current rig fleet busy for three years.”

But with drilling efficiencies increasing, the time to get those wells in could potentially be less. The average drilling time, Helms said, is now down to just over 20 days, and the time from spud date to completion data is down to 110 days. “So as we progress on that over the next three years, we think we’ll see a major decrease in that 110 days. I think that’s where the next big efficiency step is going to take place.”

In terms of well density per pad, Helms said the largest number of wells on a single pad thus far is 14, although not all of those 14 wells are yet on production. But he added that three orders have been signed approving 18 wells per pad, which is the highest number approved to date.

In addition, Helms said he knows of some proposals that will be submitted in coming months to attempt several 24-well pads. “It is a positive thing,” he said, “because it decreases the footprint, increases the production and allows us to recover more of the Bakken and Three Forks oil.”

For purposes of long-term projections, Helms said the division has used six wells per pad. With approximately 8,000 spacing units proposed for the Bakken/Three Forks play, that number results in an estimated 48,000 wells that will ultimately be drilling to fully develop the resource. That total number of well bores, he added, is nearly 10 times the current number of wells producing from the Bakken petroleum system. Fully developing that system is going to be a decades-long process, Helms concluded.

Multi-lateral wells

While pad technology has been rapidly advancing, Helms said he has not seen much success in wells with multi-laterals drilled from a single vertical bore. “Actually nobody has attempted a multi-lateral well for about a year and a half now,” he said. That was a technology that saw a lot of activity in 2010 and into the first half of 2011, “but the failure rate was just too high.” Only about 50 percent of those wells, he said, were actually able to get both laterals fracked and on production. “So the industry, in an effort to reduce costs and improve efficiencies, backed away from that technology for about the last year and a half and we haven’t seen a multi-lateral well drilled in about 18 months.”

Helms added that there really isn’t any talk about going back to that technology. Operators, he said, are able to drill the vertical sections of wells so quickly that it is now more efficient and cost effective to drill a vertical well bore for each horizontal lateral.

Three-mile laterals

Helms said there is one three-mile lateral currently on production in North Dakota and believes there are three in Montana, but added that there are a “handful” of three-mile laterals planned for North Dakota in the remainder of 2013. He said the three-mile lateral approach hasn’t really taken off, but added that it does have utility in certain areas, such as under Lake Sakakawea or other areas of difficult topography as well as in scenic areas.

According to Helms, it is still very early in the development of the longer lateral technology, and it is very difficult to know if those longer laterals are effectively fracking and draining the additional stage at the far end of the lateral. “We know that we can produce a two mile-long lateral just effectively as we can a one, but we don’t know about three.”

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