American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2015 - 102

SpecialReport: Rockies Activity Profile
A case in point is Oklahoma City-based
Continental Resources Inc., one of the earliest players in the Bakken/Three Forks
and the play's top oil producer. After delineating its acreage, performing density
testing and assessing completion techniques when oil prices were higher, Warren Henry, vice president of investor relations and research, says the company
now is stepping up its plans for full field
development in the Williston.
During delineation, the company identified its core acreage and most promising
targets for the Middle Bakken and Three
Forks 1, with large areas also prospective
for the Three Forks 2 and 3, in North
Dakota, according to Henry.
"We have done a lot of science the last
three years, and we already were evolving
toward full field development based on
everything we learned," he reviews. "The
commodity price downturn has accelerated our concentration on the core area by
a year or two."
Basinwide, Continental holds more
than 1.1 million net acres. As a leading
player in the Williston, the company is focusing on maximizing estimated ultimate
recoveries with a target of 800,000 barrels
of oil equivalent per well in the core area
using plug-and-perf, and fracturing chiefly
with slickwater and hybrid designs, he
elaborates.
On wells drilled in 2014 over a much

larger area of the play, the company's average Bakken EUR was around 550,000
boe a well, but the shift away from peripheral to core acreage has increased the average 45 percent to about 800,000 boe, he
says. "That sounds like a massive efficiency and productivity increase, but a lot of
it is locational, because we no longer are
doing as much science or testing the
fringes of the play," Henry explains. "It
also reflects what we have learned about
enhanced completions."
About 50 percent of completions consist of slickwater fracs, he estimates,
while the other 50 percent are hybrid fracs
that begin with slickwater but transition to
cross-linked gel closer to the wellbore. The
two methods have helped increase EURs
25-45 percent compared with previous
standard completions using a cross-link
gel, Henry points out.
Owing to differences in the two frac
techniques and additional experimentation,
the company typically is utilizing 120,000200,000 pounds of proppant-composed of
a mixture of white sand and ceramic-on
each stage, with stages averaging about
300 feet strategically spaced throughout
two mile-long lateral sections, Henry
says.
Keeping 10 rigs and three completion
crews busy, Continental plans to drill 191
wells this year, with about 60 percent on
interwell spacings of 660-880 feet for Mid-

Concentrating on core Bakken acreage in 2015 has helped boost Continental Resources
Inc.'s estimated ultimate recovery from a 550,000 barrels of oil equivalent average in
2014 to an 800,000 boe average in 2015, the company reports. As one of the play's pioneers, Continental remains the top producer in the Bakken/Three Forks.

102 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

dle Bakken, and Three Forks 1 wells, he
details.
The company has experimented with
six-eight well density tests across the
North Dakota portion of the basin, testing
multiple Three Forks targets with the
Middle Bakken and utilizing various offset distances, he describes. "We have come
down to a well spacing pattern with a zone
of 660-880 feet, typically, with a little
tighter spacing typically in the Middle
Bakken compared with the Three Forks,"
Henry says.
Completion and stimulation methods
will continue to evolve industrywide in the
play, he predicts. The standard North
Dakota Bakken well's EUR averaged
335,000 boe when he joined the company in February 2008, he recounts, with
two-mile laterals fractured in 10 stages.
Seven years later, the company stimulates
wells in 30 stages and expects wells in the
core to achieve EURs of 800,000 boe. Furthermore, he concludes, the play remains
relatively new, with multiple decades of
drilling opportunities ahead.
Improving Recovery

Denver-based PDC Energy Inc. indicates it has converted to all "flex" automated drilling rigs by Ensign, and continues
to experiment with downspacing and
completion stage isolation techniques to
boost estimated ultimate recoveries and
flatten decline rates. All these strategies are
an aspect of PDC's efforts to exploit
core acreage in the Denver-Julesburg
Basin's Wattenberg Field in Northeast
Colorado, where the company has more
than 3,000 horizontal drilling locations,
says President and CEO Bart Brookman.
PDC is focused on horizontal Niobrara
and Codell development in the Wattenberg, where liquids content in new horizontal wells is expected to average 54-74
percent of the production stream, he says.
As the third-largest Wattenberg leaseholder, with its approximately 96,000
net acres held by production, PDC was the
field's third-largest producer in the first
quarter of 2015, with output of 29,200 barrels of oil equivalent a day, up 14 percent
from the fourth quarter of 2014, Brookman
points out. "We continue to drive peer-
American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2015

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