Apparently there will be a ND oil-related topic on ABC's Nightline show tonight. Thanks to the reader who heard about it for passing along the info. ABC usually has an abbreviated version of the news stories they televise on their website if you miss it.
In other news (which most certainly won't be on Nightline ha.), today's Rocky Mountain Oil Journal is reporting that EOG has apparently plugged its McAlmond well about a half-dozen miles NE of the company's Austin wells in Mountrail Co.
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RMOJ confirms what I had heard from the locals that the McAlmond well was abandoned when they lost circulation.
The locals are saying that EOG will be permitting a new location for a well in McAlmond.
I keep hearing they are going to make another try in Fertile TWP as well after the section 12 fiasco.
I had a wild idea. It involves a bit of chemistry in the midle member bakken. If it is composed of mostly dolomite it may react with ethanoic acid, dissolving the minerals and releasing C02.
To a non-technical guy, is this good or bad?
Well it would dissolve the calcium and magnesium in dolomite and make it water soluble. This may open up the formation more increasing permeability. The other byproducts would be co2 and hydrogen gas possibly increasing reservoir pressure. Of course this is just a hypothesis and is untested.
I am not suprised if this well is non-commercial. I looked at the logs in 155N-90W-2 (Kvamme 2-1). The neutron is much higher than you see in the other wells (neutron is usually tracking density or seperated by 2 pu)indicating that the middle bakken might be wet. The resistivity of the shales is also dropping off indicating you might not have the sourcing from them and the mudlog appears to report "no shows" but is difficult to read.
It appears they have found the edge of the thermal maturity window.
If this is the edge of the thermal maturity window how do you explain the Bakken completions to the west?
No way to say whether or not the well was non-commercial. After what happened to the unleased lands around Austin, they might have abandoned or temporarily abandoned even if they found something good.
As far as thermal maturity goes, there is no way that you can move out of a maturity window the 500' of vertical depth difference between Austin and there. Using a rule of thumb, it should take two or three thousand feet of depth difference until one would see a gradual difference. It is not like flipping a switch.
If this was an unsuccessful test, the most likely way for it to be wet is through a breach of seal. I've also heard that they lost circulation and that could happen if they hit a big fault zone. This would seem to be good for natural fracturing of the productive zone, but all would be lost if the upper Bakken shale top seal is breached. A somewhat similar situation happens frequently in the Barnett. In the Barnett, the gas doesn't fully leak off, but the fractures go wet.
I heard that you shouldn't use ethanoic acid below a subsea depth of -6,800 because it could very well release all the demons from Hell. Just something I heard. I don't know.
what happend to the "unleased lands around Austin"?
Federal sale at $16,500/acre for 50% interest, meaning $33,000/net acre.
Probably could have been had for 1/10 of that prior to the well going down.
For those of you who missed the Nightline piece, I have been unable to find the video on line for replay, but here is a link to the text of the broadcast
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=4155639&page=1
What happened in the Fertile township section 12 fiasco.
Everything that could go wrong did. Among other things they somehow got a drill bit cemented in place way down in the well.
EOG shifts into high gear in Mountrail County
EOG has really shifted into high gear in Mountrail county, with perhaps a dozen or more new wells permitted in the past several weeks during December and January. Attention has been focused on the productive Austin township wells just coming in north of the Parshall field, but actually the south side of the Parshall field has had more new permits recently than Austin Township has had. Most of the wells on sections 12-18 of Parshall Township were completed last fall but a few remain. The first of the next row of sections, section 22, was permitted in December, and permits for that entire row of sections to the South, sections 19-24, were completed this past week. EOG has simplified the naming of the wells, just the township name and a sequence number, but sometimes they now permit one of the higher sequence numbers first. For example, last night (January 25th) the first permit for the next row of Parshall township sections came out, this one on Section 26 directly to the South of Section 23 in the previous row. The wells in the previous rows to the north are called Parshall 3 to Parshall 8 in sequence from left (west) to right (east). But for the moment, there is no permit for Parshall 9 to Parshall 12 which will no doubt be the well numbers assigned in sequence from west to east on sections 30, 29, 28 and 27 (section numbers sequentially run from east to west in that row), and the well on Section 25, the furthest east Parshall township section in that row will no doubt be named Parshall 14 when permitted I was surprised to see that the well permitted on Section 26 was an EOG well, as some earlier maps indicated that EOG did not own the leases on these sections. I still suspect that there will be some minority partners (perhaps NOGS) on the wells in this row of sections. EOG clearly has more Mountrail county leases than they have publicly admitted.
Furthermore, EOG has recently permitted several new wells in Model township to the
east plus a couple of wells in Van Hook Township immediately west of Parshall township, but adjacent. Mark Papa (the EOG CEO) had been claiming that the Parshall Field was approximately 6 miles wide, but with these new permits going into Model and Van Hook townships if successful will make the field 9 miles wide, not 6, in at least parts of the field. Meanwhile some new wells being drilled to the north should provide an answer to the question as to whether the Austin and Parshall fields are simply parts of an much larger, interconnected field. EOG claims to be experimenting with other spacings, but the new wells being permitted continue to appear to be following a very simple plan with each well being located in either the NW or SE corner of each section with a single long lateral running nearly diagonally to the opposite corner.
Meanwhile there is a bunch of other activity involving Hunt and Whiting on leases slightly to the north and west of the current Parshall field. Behm has recently permitted several wells in Osloe township, located on the east edge of Mountrail county, north of the old Plaza and Wabek fields. Indeed, on just one day, yesterday, January 25th there were no less than 5 permits for new Mountrail county wells.
I presume that all these permits represent work the companies reasonably hope to complete during 2008. Everythying is therefore going to move at a much faster pace than in 2007, and EOG alone will have 8 rigs going at once. I suppose that plans to complete all these wells could change if some of the wells being drilled on sections nearby end up being nonproductive, but if EOG (or the others, for that matter) has been having second thoughts about putting down all these holes, they certainly haven’t been behaving that way.
I need to stop and catch my breath to think about how this is going to be with a big oil well on a NW or SE corner of all these sections of land. For those who simply enjoy watching oil field development and what happens when one or two companies strike it big, the Parshall field going into 2008 has got to be one of the most interesting places to be on the planet. Most of those who either live in the area or have links to the area retain some mineral interests. As a consequence, the wealth is going to be broadly disbursed among a fairly large group of people. Meanwhile, Mountrail county government has suddenly found itself awash in revenue from the oil field development. Main street businesses too greatly benefit from all the new money being spent in the local communities near the field. As many of you probably realize, the Parshall area is not a location that has ever had much in the way of strong economic development—the occasional good crop and that is about it. But suddenly all of this is changing. There are, of course a few who wishes that daily life could return to how it was before the oil rigs showed up, but fortunately, not many people feel this way.
David,
Thanks for the commentary.
"Most of those who either live in the area or have links to the area retain some mineral interests. As a consequence, the wealth is going to be broadly disbursed among a fairly large group of people."
My childhood days were in Mountrail County and I own mineral interests that have been handed down from my parents and homesteading grandparents.
There are almost 2,000 sections of land in Mountrail County. The oil companies will need to drill 400 wells per year to test all the sections before their leases expire. Unless the drillers get 1,280 acre spacing exemptions, that will require 40 rigs or more to drill these wells.
Does anyone know if there is oil well drilling planned for Section 7-Township 155 North and Range 88 West in Mountrail County, North Dakota? My wife's uncle has a little bit of the minerals there and might give them to us!
I think EOG is going to keep testing for the outer limits of this field first and then go back in with the third well on the 1280 spacing. The other thing to remember is this is very light crude and the total ultimate recovery of this oil could be much higher than the 10% number going around maybe as high as 30%. The other thing to remember about oil wells is that you do not want to pull the oil out as fast as possible - which is why the barrels of oil per day say 6 months down the road won't be the same as the initial barrels of oil per day test. EOG is choking these wells back to get the most oil out over a long duration in my opinion.
I am curious about "tight hole" status. On the confidential well list EOG often shows dates off but Slawson doesn't. An example is the three wells in 151 90. At least I am assuming there are wells there. Does "tight hole" mean the information is confidential for six months after the well is drilled?
Andy, it's six months after the well is spudded. If no release date is given on the list, it means the well hasn't been spudded yet, because you need a spud date to get the end date of tight hole status.
I have observed that the confidential status is not exactly six months after the well was spudded.
Here is a sampling from the wells EOG drilled in Austin Township.
AUSTIN 1-02H spudded August 8, 2007is off confidential status on March 12, 2008. (7 months)
AUSTIN 2-03H spudded September 15, 2007 is off confidential status on May 7, 2008. (8 months)
AUSTIN 4-09H spudded October 19, 2007 is off confidential status on June 5, 2008. (8 months)
Actually, the clock starts when the well is spudded if the request for TH status is made before that time. Otherwise, it starts from the earlier of when the request is made,or from the date the well is completed.
So the requests on these wells that Larry mentioned were made after the well was spudded and the clock therefore starts from the request date.
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