Niobrara Shale Formation - Colorado/Kansas/Wyoming
- Natural Gas & Oil Field
Niobrara Shale Oil Field - Colorado -
Weld County, Yuma County, Adams County, Morgan County Wyoming - Goshen County, Platte County, Niobrara County, Laramie
County ( Cheyenne )
February 2010 - Unidentified
company drills a Niobrara Formation oil well that yielded 1770 BOPD in first 24 hours - located in Weld County, CO -
8 miles west of Grover
What is the Niobrara Shale Formation?
The Niobrara Shale is a shale rock formation located in Northeast Colorado, Northwest Kansas, Southwest Nebraska,
and Southeast Wyoming. Oil and Natural Gas can be found deep below the earth's surface at depths of 3,000 - 14,000 feet.
Companies drill these wells vertically and even horizontally to get at the Oil and Natural Gas in the Niobrara Formation.
The Niobrara Shale is located in the Denver–Julesburg basin
which is often refered to as the DJ Basin. This exciting oil shale play is being compared to the Bakken Shale which is located in North Dakota. While we are still in the early stages on the Niobrara play, the results
are looking very promising. Oil & Gas companies are quickly leasing land in the core zones located in Weld County Colorado, Yuma County Colorado, and even Cheyenne, Kansas.
The Niobrara Shale is semi new oil formation that is starting
to see some exciting results. Many companies are actively buying up land leases and acquiring acreage in the Colorado
/ Wyoming regions. As we approach the end of 2010, we should get a better sense of the potential here. Samson
Oil & Gas Limited (SSN), which has 46,000 net acres in the Goshen Wyoming area, is already referring the Niobrara Shale
as the NeoBakken. Recently, EOG Resources (EOG) announced they continue to lease land but are up to 400,000 acres.
In the DJ Basin of Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming, EOG has accumulated
400,000 net acres and has completed three successful wells in the Niobrara Play to date. EOG is encouraged that the first
well, the Jake 2-01H drilled in Northern Colorado, produced 50 thousand barrels of crude oil in the first 90 days. However,
due to the complexity of the fracture system, assessment of long-term production performance and further improvements in completion
optimization will be required before EOG moves into development mode and estimates its reserve potential. Geologic mapping
of EOG's acreage position indicates there may be potential for multiple core areas. Link Here
The Niobrara Oil Shale joins the
ranks of the Bakken Shale (North Dakota) and the Eagle Ford Shale ( South Texas ).
Niobrara Geological Map
http://www.irvineenergy.com/projects/index.htm
Niobrara Shale Map
Courtesy - Samson Oil & Gas (SSN)
Niobrara Oil Map Approx. Zone
Companies Drilling in the Niobrara Shale
- Niobrara Shale Stocks
Noble Energy, Inc. (NBL) - Turning to our current operations at Wattenberg, our drilling activity was increased in the fourth quarter to five rigs.
And we have since added a sixth rig early in 2010. Record drill times in Wattenberg continue to be achieved on the order three
days spud to spud. After the acquisition closes, we expect to add two additional rigs to the field mid-year, and plan on operating
at least eight and up to nine rigs in the field for the remainder of 2010.
As we continued to focus on the liquid
potential of this field, we conducted a three-well horizontal program Niobrara program late in 2009 after extensive study
of this opportunity, and looking at results from an early 2009 test. Two of the recent wells have been completed, with the
third completion scheduled to commence in the next couple of weeks. The initial well results have been encouraging. And we
planned to have one rig in Wattenberg focused on horizontal Niobrara drillings throughout the year. As most are aware, there's
been a lot of interest in horizontal Niobrara running room in the DJ Basin. Applying the same geoscience processes and technical
discipline that has proven successful in our other exploration plays, we will drill some horizontal Niobrara oil tests outside
of the Wattenberg field during the second half of the year.
Update: In our horizontal Niobrara
program, we now have two rigs drilling in the central DJ basin, both currently in the Wattenberg field.
So far we
have drilled 10 horizontal Niobrara wells in
Wattenberg and two in the Grover area about 20 miles northeast of Wattenberg. Eight of the Wattenberg wells are now on production
with two awaiting completion operations. As we continue to step out to the north and the eastern portions of the Wattenberg
field, we're encouraged by the early flow back in liquid content of our new wells. Recent initial 24 hour rates have ranged
from 580 to 845 barrels of oil equivalent per day with a 70% to 90% liquid content.
Starting in September,
we expect to drill a few more wells closer to the Gemini area, around the core of the field and near existing vertical producers.
The Gemini well has now produced over 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent in just four months, and is currently producing about
600 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
In the Grover area, the first two horizontal wells were recently drilled and
are undergoing completion operations. We will keep one of the two current horizontal rigs in Wattenberg the rest of the year
and the other rig will move between Wattenberg and the Grover area.
In southern Wyoming, we are also bringing in an
additional rig to drill three horizontal Niobrara
wells starting in the third quarter. Overall, our horizontal Niobrara program is on target, with about 30 total wells drilled in the play by year end. Along with our ongoing
3D seismic activity, production monitoring and additional reservoir evaluation work, we should be in a good position by the
end of the year to assess our expansion plans for this area. Overall, we're currently operating 13 rigs in our onshore US
program. Five of those rigs are conducting horizontal operations and eight are drilling vertical wells.
Chesapeake Energy CHK - Rocky Mountain Unconventional Liquids Plays (southern Wyoming and
northern Colorado): Chesapeake has developed a leading position in the horizontal Niobrara and Frontier plays in the
Powder River Basin in Wyoming with approximately 470,000 net acres acquired during the past two years. The company has
also recently entered the Niobrara play in the DJ Basin of northern Colorado and southern Wyoming with 205,000 net acres.
The company has drilled and completed two gross wells to date in these plays. Chesapeake expects to initiate joint venture
discussions in the Niobrara play in the 2010 second half. In 2011 and 2012, the company plans to increase its Niobrara
and Frontier operated rig count to an average of approximately six operated rigs as it continues its transition away from
natural gas drilling to more liquids-rich drilling.
Continental announced July 9 that it has established
a strategic position in the Niobrara Shale play, and has now leased 59,071 net acres in Weld County, Colorado and Platte,
Laramie and Goshen counties, Wyoming. The Company was active drilling horizontal wells in the Silo Field portion of the play
in the early 1990s, prior to the development of multi-stage fracture stimulation techniques. Continental sees excellent potential
for development in the play using current well completion technology.
Continental plans to initiate
drilling in the Niobrara in the fourth quarter of this year.
St Mary's Land & Exploration SM - NIOBRARA - SM Energy completed its first horizontal well targeting the Niobrara in mid-May 2010. The Atlas 1-19H (SM 94%
WI), which is located just south of the Silo Field in Laramie County, Wyoming, was drilled to a vertical depth of roughly
8,000 ft and a total measured depth of approximately 12,000 ft. The 7-day initial production average for the well was 1,075
BOE/d, and as of July 27, 2010, the well was making roughly 500 BOPD. SM Energy is currently working to secure a drilling
rig to drill a second test well in this program later this year. The Company has approximately 25,000 net acres leased in
this portion of the Niobrara play, which is located in the northern part of the Denver-Julesburg Basin.
EOG Resources, Inc. (EOG) - EOG Resources has 400,000 acres in the Niobrara shale. In
the Niobrara Formation in Colorado, EOG is operating a four-rig exploratory drilling program currently concentrating on 100,000
of its 400,000 total net acre position. During the second quarter, EOG drilled and completed the Critter Creek #02-03H and
Critter Creek #04-09H, which are producing at managed restricted rates of 570 and 600 Bopd, respectively. EOG has 100 percent
working interest in these wells.
Mark in terms of your activity in the powder river basin, targeting oil and in the northern Colorado, southern Wyoming, Niobrara Oil Play, could you comment
on your activity there? I am just going to make a comment at this time that we have got a policy of not commenting on any
of our horizontal oil activities where we are still leasing acreage and so at this point I am not going to make any comment
regarding that. I will acknowledge because it’s after in the public domain that we are drilling some horizontal oil
wells in the Niobrara and the DJ basin. That’s as far as I’m going to go at this time till we get our acreage
completely locked up.
Samson Oil & Gas Limited (SSN) - Samson Oil and Gas has a 50% working interest in 54,000 acres ( 16,000 net acres ) in the Niobrara Shale Field. This
acreage is located in Goshen County Wyoming. The company has drilled one well so far and note the recent robust industry interest.
EOG Resources is drilling wells to the South in Goshen, WY as well as Platte County & Laramie County. Samson Oil &
Gas is expecting to drill a horizontal re-entry with rates of around 300 BOPD.
Wyoming - Northern D-J Basin Hawk Springs (Goshen County) – Niobrara oil - Samson 50-100% Working Interest in 54,000 acres, net 16,000 acres
Samson anticipates drilling a new well in the Niobrara Formation
in the first quarter of 2011 following the acquisition, processing, and interpretation of its planned 80 square mile 3-D seismic
survey. The 3-D seismic survey will help identify fracture swarms to enable Samson to properly design its horizontal wells
in the correct orientation relative to the fractures.
MDU Resources MDU - MDU Resources announced recently that they are active in the Niobrara Oil Play - We are excited to
announce that we have signed agreements to acquire additional acreage in the newly emerging Niobrara play, resulting in a
total position of over 80,000 net acres. In the Niobrara play, the company has signed agreements in place to acquire
over 80,000 net acres. The company is also continuing to actively pursue additional leasehold and reserve acquisitions, which
are not included in the current forecast.
Conference Call - I’m excited to announce that we have signed agreements to acquire additional acreage in emerging Niobrara play resulting in a total position of over 80,000 net acres. The Niobrara shale play in southeastern Wyoming and the North central parts of the Colorado,
these are in Laramie and Goshen counties, utilized horizontal drilling in stage completion, similar to the technology deployed
in the Bakken play in North Dakota.
If you think about Niobrara, we’re certainly working on kind of lot of plans and development and securing services and all
those types of things. Probably, optimistically, we could start some drilling at the end of this year, but more likely it’ll
occur sometime next year.
I mean probably with our acreage in Niobrara.
It’s early but we’ve got probably 120 some potential drill sites there assuming kind of 640 acre spacing we got
about half of that up in the Bakken area. And again I think both of those provide an opportunity to add some production growth
in the future and kind of repeatable drilling scenario based on kind of the formations there. So we think those really help
us with that growth.
Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) - Anadarko is planning to begin an operated drilling program in the Horizontal Niobrara oil
play in the 3rd quarter 2010. In addition to its significant leasehold position within the Wattenberg field,
the company holds approximately 500,000 acres of primarily Land Grant mineral fee acreage in this developing play, extending
from north of the Wattenberg asset into southern Wyoming. The company continues to participate in activity in the play with
industry partners and is leveraging that information to refine plans for its upcoming drilling program.
Petroleum Development Corporation (PETD) - The Rockies will be referring to primarily three areas, NECO or Northeast Colorado, which is on the Northeastern
Colorado-Kansas border; shallow Niobrara plate of Wattenberg, which is just north of Denver; J Sand and Codell, Niobrara and
the Piceance Basin, which is in Western Colorado. These three basins together combined for 80 to 90% of our reserves in production.
Whiting Petroleum Corporation (WLL) - Niobrara Leasing and Exploration. Whiting has assembled a total of 55,000 gross (39,000 net)
acres in northeastern Colorado that the Company believes to be prospective for Niobrara shale oil production. The Company
expects to continue to actively lease in the area. Whiting anticipates drilling its first Niobrara well on this acreage in
the first half of 2011.
The Company's existing Niobrara exploration
project, the Hatfield prospect in Carbon County, Wyoming, contains approximately 53,000 gross (32,000 net) acres. Whiting
expects to spud two wells on the prospect in the second half of 2010. The Niobrara in this area is at a depth of approximately
3,500 feet, with Estimated Ultimate Recovery (EUR) of 100,000 - 125,000 BOE. Total estimated completed well costs are expected
to range between $1.0 million and $1.5 million. These wells will be vertical tests. However, if these wells are successful,
Whiting expects future wells to be horizontal and drilled on 160-acre spacing in order to increase EURs.
Rex Energy REXX - DJ Basin - In the DJ Basin, Rex Energy recently completed the previously announced purchase of approximately 18,000
net acres surrounding the Silo Field in Laramie County, Wyoming. The company now has leased or farmed-in approximately 40,000
acres prospective for the Niobrara Shale in Laramie County, Wyoming and Weld County, Colorado at an average cost of approximately
$600 per acre.
At the end of July 2010, Rex Energy spud its first Niobrara Shale well, which is located in the
southeastern end of the Silo Field. The company expects to drill the well with a 4,000 feet lateral extension and to complete
it with a 10 to 12 stage fracture stimulation.
Quicksilver Resources Inc. (KWK) - Another new project we've been working on is in the Green River Basin in the Northern Rockies where we have assembled over
1,000 acres. The target here is a thick deposition of Mancos and Niobrara shales. Because of the thickness and depth of these
shales, we believe that it will be a vertical well play. We have – we've drilled two wells, three townships apart. The
initial well came in at roughly 4 million a day and the second well, despite some mechanical issues limiting the number of
zones fraced, came in at roughly 6 million a day and is currently producing over 3 million cubic feet a day. We believe this
project can be commercial, but we have more work to do on the drilling and completion design. What we have learned so far
is we can improve the efficiency of the drilling and completions and we will focus our fracs on the highest potential zones
from here forward. Again, more work to do, but very encouraging results so far.
Bill Barrett Corp BBG - The Company plans to drill two exploratory wells during 2010. The wells will be vertical core holes to evaluate the Niobrara
and Mowry formations.
