"Southwestern has approximately 563,000 net acres targeting the Lower Smackover Brown Dense formation in southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana. The company has drilled four wells in the play area to date and is currently drilling two wells.  The company’s first two wells, which were completed earlier this year, are currently shut-in for testing. The company’s third well, the BML #31-22 #1-1H located in Union Parish, Louisiana, was drilled to a vertical depth of approximately 10,400 feet with a 4,300-foot horizontal lateral and was completed with 19 successful fracture stimulation stages in June. After 41 days of flowing up casing, this well’s highest 24-hour producing rate to date was 421 barrels of 50o API oil per day, 3,900 Mcf of high Btu gas per day and 836 barrels of water per day (43% of load recovered to date) with a calculated flowing bottom hole pressure of 5,700 psi on a 24/64-inch choke. The well was shut-in on July 27 in order to perform a pressure build-up test. The company believes that it will begin selling both oil and gas from the BML well in the fourth quarter of 2012. The oil pricing the company is receiving from this area is at a premium to WTI due to the geographic location of the play, and analysis of the gas shows a Btu content of approximately 1,220 per cubic foot, so it is expected to receive a premium to NYMEX gas prices due to the richer gas liquids. The company’s fourth well, the Johnson #21-22-1 #1 located in Union Parish, Louisiana, was drilled to a vertical depth of 10,507 feet in July. Like in the BML well, this well also encountered unusually high pressure within the target formation. The company plans to complete this well vertically in August, but the well will be able to be re-entered as a horizontal well in the future. The company has also commenced drilling on the Dean 31-22-1E #1, located in Union Parish, Louisiana, which is currently drilling at approximately 8,325 feet. This well is planned to be drilled to approximately 10,450 feet and be completed vertically. The company is also drilling the Doles 30-22-1H #1, located in Union Parish, Louisiana, which is currently drilling at approximately 6,375 feet. This well is planned to be drilled to a measured depth of approximately 17,300 feet and is currently designed to be completed with a 6,000-foot horizontal lateral."

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Replies to This Discussion

Skip, in regard to the following:

Roberson         2750 Bottom hole pressure    103  bbld

Garrett             4100 Bottom hole pressure    301 bbld

BML               5700 Bottom hole pressure     421 bbld

My question is: May bottom hole pressure, like production rates, be a product of SWN's learning curve, or is BHP just what it is and nothing SWN does will affect that?  Is there an essential correlation between the two, or does it just happen that in this small sample of three wells they seem to correlate nicely?

Thanks

DavidR

David, only SWN would know the answer to that question.  I suspect that their bottom hole pressures as published are reasonably accurate barometers of the formation pressure at that depth within the formation.  In general the more gas the formation holds, the higher the pressure.  So it is reasonable IMO that though there may be less "oil" and more natural gas liquids at particular depths,  the combination can make the most profitable wells.

Thanks, Skip

David, recognize these are flowing BHP's rather than shut-in BHP's so they are heavily influenced by both rock properties and the effectiveness of any fracture stimulation treatment.

Dion,

Thanks for the post and explanation. Do you believe it will take years and mutiple wells to establish the productive fairway?

This may be off-topic, but after reading parts of Mueller's text on the conf. call I noticed the bit about the access the the refineries...specifically how he mentioned the one in Arkansas (Lion Oil in El Dorado):

"We did sell some oil at WTI plus $10 off of the lease, and the reason for that is there's 4 refineries in the area, about 135,000 barrels a day of refining capacity, 1 is in Arkansas and 3 in Northern Louisiana. And they really would like to have the oil condensate that comes off of this. So both the gas is going to be rich and we'll have some NGLs with it and the oil has a premium price to it."

 

Anyway I saw where Delek had a conf. call last week, and while nothing was mentioned about the LSBD (which is why this post may be off-topic) I found some comments of interest (at least to me they were).

 

 

HOUSTON, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Oil refiner Delek U.S. Holdings Inc is ramping up capabilities to receive crude oil via rail at its Arkansas refinery, both to increase access to cheaper oil and to compensate for the lengthy outage of a supplier pipeline, executives told analysts on Wednesday

Introducing rail deliveries allowed the company's 83,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) refinery in El Dorado, Arkansas, to operate at 64,000 bpd in the second quarter and 70,000 bpd last month despite Exxon Mobil Corp's shutdown of its North Line pipeline in late April because of rupture that allowed more than 1,800 barrels of crude to leak

Average throughput for both the Arkansas and 60,000 bpd refinery in Tyler, Texas, was about 127,000 bpd in the quarter, Yemin said. A power outage at the Tyler plant in early May forced it to run at reduced rates for three weeks.

In May and June, the El Dorado refinery received about 2,000 bpd of lower priced crude by rail from North Dakota's Bakken shale oil play, Canada, the Eagle Ford shale in Texas and the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery point for U.S. crude oil futures.

This month, those deliveries ramped up to 9,000 bpd, and can increase further to 15,000 bpd, Yemin said. The company also plans to add another 10,000 bpd of incoming heavy crude via rail in early 2013 with a new unloading facility at the El Dorado plant.

"We believe that our improved access to crude in El Dorado will allow us to reduce dependency on Gulf Coast crude and provide us with access to more economical types of crude at this refinery," Yemin said.

An Exxon spokeswoman said analysis of the shut part of the North Line pipeline near Torbert, Louisiana, is ongoing as the company works with regulators on the assessment and restart considerations.

Yemin also told analysts that the El Dorado refinery is slated for a pair of projects to increase diesel fuel production and optimize operations of the gasoline-making fluid catalytic cracking unit.

A $3 million upgrade, the first phase of which is slated to wrap up at year-end, will increase the diesel production capability to 34,000 bpd from 30,000 bpd, he said.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/08/delek-rail-idUSL2E8J86R02...

 

 

 

I thought this was interesting as well, especially considering that this refinery had in the past been subject to "shut down" rumors. 15-20,000 bbl per day of rail would equal 30-40 tank cars per day.

One thing I wondered about though, was the three refineries in N LA. I know of the one in Shreveport, but where are the other two?

SG, many refineries in the central US (and other facilities) are looking to access Bakken crude oil and other Cushing supply by rail as an interim measure prior to the completion of the Keystone Pipeline.  Some amount of crude oil may continue to be transported by rail longer term to the extent pipeline capacity is inadequate.

Barbara, seismic data is useful in locating subsequent wells and mapping faults.  Typically such surveys are not limited to a single unit but cover a much larger area.

 

Microseismic techniques are utilized to monitor an individual well or limited area to determine the performance of a fracture stimulation or a reservoir. 

Thank you Les. I guess they are trying to get a bigger Geographic layout of the area. The seismic crew punched maybe 20 holes about 80 ft deep in their testing according to a family member.

So I guess there is no need to open the Swiss Bank Account for boatloads of money from the Roberson well. LOL.

I noticed that the amount of acreage Southwestern Energy has leased in the Brown Dense is still the same as what they announced in March 2012.  I would think if they had really liked the results this number would have increased, especially given they have been very quiet since the last financial presentation.  The wait continues until some of these other wells are drilled and they know if they can make this play commercially viable.  At least they are still going for it.

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