Saturday, September 8, 2012

Filloon on TPLM

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  1. Could we some day see wells drilled perpendicular to opposing well laterals with opposing drilling units?

    I am writing about a situation where you have opposing well pads/drilling units on either side of a road or section line and each of the existing well laterals in one unit run the direct opposite direction (180 degrees) of the well laterals in the other drilling unit. The well heads are back to back. I am not writing about a situation where laterals in two adjacent drilling units are running parallel and in the same direction.

    I wonder what the average distance is between the “heels” of opposing well laterals. One well lateral going north (or east) and the opposing well lateral going south (or west)?

    Consider this.

    I am no expert but I think that fracking is only performed in the horizontal portion of the lateral. If this is true then the distance between the first drilling units fracked formation to the opposing units (opposing heel to heel) fracked formation could be significant.

    If you were to add the distance between both of the opposing wells set backs and then add the distance from the kickoff point to the start of the horizontal leg (or the distance of the last effective frack spread), this would give you the possible missed portion of the formation that may not be producing. I also think that the curve portion of a well (in this scenario times 2) could take up more horizontal distance than one would think but I am not sure about this.

    If this distance of non fracked formation is large enough then maybe someday the operators may consider drilling perpendicular wells. Why wouldn’t they? If what I am thinking is true, then there must be a fair amount of the formation between drilling units that is not fracked and also not going to produce until it is fracked. If you add this missed amount of formation between opposing drilling units with opposing wells across the whole basin, the quantity of squandered oil could be huge.

    If this scenario were to take place then one has to assume that the spacing unit for this type of well would be a 5120 acre if the adjacent units (4) were all 1280’s and the perpendicular well was a long lateral.

    I am probably way off base on all this but what do you think?

    1. There are advantages to larger spacing units, but 1280-acre and 2560-acre units will probably be the norm; there may be exceptions but after that --> unitization.

      I recently had a poll on whether smaller or larger spacing units were better; I was in the minority, but the minority was correct in this case. Smile.

      My understanding is they frack in the direction that makes geologic sense.

  2. Triangle recently applied for several drilling perimits with the NDIC and each permit was for 2 - 4 wells per spacing unit. This company will one to watch in latter 2012 and in 2013. I recently talked with their land department in Denver and was told that their drilling operations will become more aggressive over the next several months.

    1. TPLM remains one of my favorite operators to follow in the Bakken. And, again, I'm talking about just the "fun" of watching things play out in the Bakken, not for investment purposes.

      Thank you for taking time to comment; yes, I am quite excited, also, about TPLM.