Murphy Creek Area Heating Up

After a recent drought in drilling permits, Kerr-McGee received two today for the Murphy Creek Field area located about 4 miles SW of Killdeer in Dunn Co. The two new permits, Sadowsky 24-1H and Kulish 24-3H, in secs. 1 and 3, T144N-R96W, are with a mile or so of a well the company recently spudded in sec.10, the Schwindt 31-10H. Kerr-McGee has also drilled two producing wells in secs. 2 and 11 within the past six months and recently moved the rig back to drill the Schwindt well after drilling a wildcat Bakken well north of the old Fairfeld store in Billings Co. The company originally sought to drill dual lateral wells on 1280 acre spacing in this area, but later changed its plans and now drills dual lateral wells on 640 acre spacing.

The Voss well in sec. 14, now operated by Marathon, was one of the original mid-Bakken wildcats drilled in Dunn Co. in 2005. These future Kerr-McGee projects remain in doubt, however, since the company announced plans to sell its Williston Basin assets to Encore Acquisition Co. two months ago, and the new company's plans for the Bakken are unclear. http://www.shareholder.com/encore/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=227166

This area is also of interest to Marathon as they have several wells permitted west of the Kerr-McGee wells. This general area is near a major fault in the Basin, which is thought to be favorable for fracture development in the Bakken. An interesting dry hole is also located in the area in sec. 4, T144-R96. More on all of this later.