Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by craig on May 16, 2015 at 2:30pm

I now have talked to two different folks who work for two different oil/gas related companies that have told me CHK is going to start drilling again in our county. One said that we would have around 16 wells drilled by year end. The other one said that CHK was going to drill over 40 wells in Western and South Western Pa starting sometime later this year.

I didn't post anything after the first contact.....until I had a confirmation from another source, which happened Thursday.

Possible New drilling and cracker plant..... things are getting more interesting!

Permalink Reply by Nancy LeNau on May 16, 2015 at 3:49pm

Craig, Thank you for this Important Information !   God Bless....   Nancy

 

Permalink Reply by Todd on May 16, 2015 at 5:40pm

Craig,

How about that?!? Who would've thunk it?!? Excellent investigative work Craig!! I posted that CHK Utica presentation that Gary sent to me to his credit -- CHK is basically saying that they have cracked the Utica code (no pun intended!) They're now predicting > 50% increase in production on their newest wells vs the wells from a couple years ago -- that's wonderful news to me!

Thanks again,

Todd

Permalink Reply by Michael on May 18, 2015 at 7:15am

Craig,

That's great news.

You probably know this better than me but I had heard that these companies drill more wells around existing wells.

Mike

Permalink Reply by craig on May 18, 2015 at 7:32am

Michael, You are right in that assumption. There may be a few new pads developed though as some leases are expiring as time goes on. Not sure though as I believe they are going to be drilling all the vertical wells they have permitted on current pads. I say this because the cost of drilling should be down as the number of rigs sitting idle is increasing... and also because they have recently been filing for these veritcal wells. They will come back later and drill the horizontals into the play that best suits their needs.

All my opinion only.

Permalink Reply by mlb on May 19, 2015 at 12:54am

Craig, is it your understanding then that they will mostly be adding wells to existing pads or a little bit of both..new pads plus 2nd, 3rd etc wells on existing pads?

And after looking at the DEP gas numbers for beaver county that came out yesterday I hope they do drill some more because it is obvious that the majority of those wells are pretty bad.  In just a few months production on some are below or close to being below what wells like Burdick, Tharp, Thompson are after 3+ years of production.    So I hope they learned something.  They won't make their money back on many of the current wells, not with low production numbers and then hit again by awful prices right as they came online.

Probably one of the few bright spots is we have a lot of gathering lines in place now....so they need some good wells to keep them flowing.

Permalink Reply by craig on May 19, 2015 at 4:53am

mlb, it is all a guess of how they might drill the next wells. My guess is that they will drill new wells on current pads, only because they have the gathering lines in the ground and don't have to spend money for new ones. After all CHK's  money is tight ya know.

If you are looking at the McDanel well production you must remember the horizontal is about half as long as all others... thus production is way less as well. Also remember that they can be choking wells back that we don't know about.

Permalink Reply by Todd on May 19, 2015 at 6:55am

You both make good points but something has got to give.

I would shut the wells in until more infrastructure is in place and prices go up. What I really want to see though is some wells with over 10 Bcfe type decline curves as stated in their own Utica presentation for Columbiana County.

Perhaps folks in some of the units could contact CHK and ask them how much choke is being applied.

Thanks

Permalink Reply by craig on May 19, 2015 at 7:21am

Todd, I don't believe they will shut-in the currently producing wells. I say this because they have partners in just about every well now and I suspect the partners want some kind of return on their money sooner than later... even if it is miniscule.

Permalink Reply by mlb on May 19, 2015 at 10:34am

I will be glad to see them drill any new wells for sure.  New pad or old pad.  Anywhere in our area would be good news.

I've just been looking at all the beaver county data, I guess I'm not impressed overall.  Maybe it will improve but it is concerning that so many wells are declining so fast and started out so low to begin with.  Not a lot of room there for things to level off and leave much.  But yes the length of the lateral would matter, I am not sure of each wells laterals and unit size either.  Perhaps someone knows this, the IP of each well, I know not a guarantee on each well but it would be interesting.