American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2016 - 79

TECH TRENDS
EUR rankings in the bottom quartile (085,000 barrels of oil equivalent) of all
wells in B and C grade acreage, and have
first production dates of Nov. 1, 2007,
and later. Collectively, these wells represent
refrac opportunities with significant upside.
Even more compelling are the wide
variations in performance by operators
within a nominally consistent acreage
grade. Shown in Figure 6 are five operators
in C grade acreage for which the running
sum of their incremental 24-month cumulative production is plotted from wells
in the order in which they were drilled.
The fact that one operator is achieving
two times the cumulative 24-month pro-

duction of the laggard within the group
implies that best-practice drilling and
completion engineering techniques still
can be applied to potentially good effect
across the entire grade, and probably
across the play.
In summary, mature, unconventional,
single/few-formation reservoir plays are
in some ways converging on standardized
best practices. However, basinwide type
curves, which often are used to estimate
EURs, do not reflect local geologic variability and should be replaced with more
localized type curving.
Wide performance variations for operators within similar acreage types imply
that EUR estimates are still quite variable

FIGURE 5
B & C Grade Eagle Ford Wells
(Lowest Quartile by EUR)

and do not yet reflect the consistent adoption of best practices, and therefore, probably are subject to upward revision for
both refrac candidates and undrilled locations.
❒

Coming In February
How new geochemical and modeling techniques are improving productivity in Bakken/Three Forks
horizontals, and how state-of-the-art
geophysical technologies are giving
new life to old geology in South
Texas.

FIGURE 6
Comparative 24-Month Cumulative Production
(Eagle Ford C Grade Horizontal Wells)
30,000k

Running Sum of 24 Month Cum BOE 6:1

25,000k
20,000k
15,000k
10,000k
5,000k
0

TANYA ANDRIEN is the market director for finance and oil field services,
and product manager for analytics at
Drillinginfo. Prior to joining Drillinginfo, Andrien was a lecturer at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, and was the
associate director of the McCombs Energy Center, where she was responsible
for alumni relations, student programming, and business operations. Prior
to working for McCombs, Andrien was
a director with financial advisory firm
Duff and Phelps. She holds a B.A. in
economics from Princeton and an M.B.A.
from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Average 24 month
cum after 80 wells:
202,090 BOE

Average 24 month
cum after 80 wells:
98,750 BOE
0

CARL W. NEUHAUS is the managing
director of Drillinginfo Services at
Drillinginfo, where he is responsible for
planning technical and strategic consulting
services in unconventional and conventional fields for operators, nonoperators,
and service companies. His technical
leadership in domestic and international
engagements focuses on cross-disciplinary
data integration, field development, and
production optimization strategies, as
well as on business strategy and knowledge
transfer. Neuhaus holds a B.S. and an
M.S. in petroleum engineering from the
Mining University of Leoben, and a M.S.
in petroleum engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.

100
Well Order

120

140

160

180

200

MARK NIBBELINK is co-founder
and director of academic outreach at
Drillinginfo. After earning a B.A. in
1971 and an M.A. in 1973 in geology
and geophysics from Dartmouth College,
Nibbelink worked for Gulf Oil, ERA
North America and Kugler-Newberry,
and as an independent prospect generator in a wide variety of both well-site
and interpretative geoscience positions
before co-founding Drillinginfo in 1999.
He served as president of Drillinginfo
until 2011. Nibbelink's focus today is
on building university relations to help
the next generation of oil finders.

JANUARY 2016 79

American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2016

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