Whiting Petroleum (WLL) updated the company’s recent operations in the Denver Julesburg basin, where the company is developing the Niobrara Shale. The company has 75,107 net acres under lease here at the Redtail prospect and reported the completion of four wells drilled into the Niobrara formation.
The Wild Horse 16-13H well produced 1,321 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) per day during a 24 hour test period. The production was composed of 1,061 barrels of oil and 1.561 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
This Niobrara well was drilled with a 4,113 foot lateral and completed with a twenty one stage hydraulic fracturing operation. During the first thirty days the Wild Horse 16-13H well produced 454 BOE per day.
The Pawnee 16-13H, the Terrace 36-11H and Chalk Bluffs 36-13H wells, were less successful and had initial production rates of 141 BOE, 105 BOE and 99 BOE per day, respectively.
Whiting Petroleum attributed the success of the Wild Horse 16-13H well to “changing the well orientation to a northeast azimuth from an east to west orientation and modifying our frac design, including our frac fluid.”
Whiting Petroleum has decided to add four additional horizontal wells to its drilling program at the Redtail prospect in 2011. The company expects the Two Mile Creek 22-13H Niobrara well to be completed on July 31, 2011.
