G. Alan Petzet
Exploration Editor
Horizontal drilling is still spreading in onshore U.S. oil fields.
Texaco Inc. completed a shallow well producing oil by gravity drainage through three horizontal legs about 120 apart on the La Barge platform in Wyoming.
Maersk Energy Co., Houston, apparently was successful with Austin chalk horizontal drilling in Sabine County, East Texas.
Another horizontal completion in Cretaceous Niobrara was reported and several other wells were drilling or staked in Silo field, Laramie County, Wyo.
Pennzoil Exploration & Production Co. received approval to drill Montana's first horizontal well in Mississippian Madison.
Amoco Production Co. plans to evaluate Niobrara and Upper Cretaceous Frontier at a horizontal well in Converse County, Wyo., in the Powder River basin.
More Mississippian-Devonian Bakken horizontal drilling is on tap in North Dakota despite discouraging production results at wells in certain areas of that play.
And BDM Corp., McLean, Va., CNG Development Co., Pittsburgh, and the U.S. Department of Energy have spudded West Virginia's third horizontal well and the first in Calhoun County.
LA BARGE PROJECT
Texaco completed a producer from the low pressure Almy member of Eocene Wasatch with three laterals kicked from the same vertical well bore from the same kickoff depth.
The G634Y La Barge Unit, in 34-27n-113w, Sublette County, is 20 miles south-southwest of Big Piney, Wyo.
It has been on conventional vertical rod pump making about 30 b/d of oil and 3 b/d of water with no decline from a 24 in. underreamed, gravel packed, unstimulated zone in Almy at 415-520 ft. Most vertical Almy wells produce less than 10 b/d of oil.
The laterals with approximate direction and length are: north-northeast 133 ft, east-southeast 155 ft, and south-southwest 70 ft.
The 4 in. diameter laterals were jetted into Almy using a nonrotating nozzle through which water was pumped from surface through coiled tubing at 175 gal/min at about 10,000 psi.
The laterals, made with an ultrashort (1 -1 5 ft) radius system provided by Petrolphysics Inc., San Francisco, are at angles of 90 or more to vertical.
After drilling, the laterals were lined with flexible sand barrier, a tube that serves as a production conduit.
Making each radial took 12-14 hr. Horizontal drilling contractor's cost was $30,000-40,000/radial.
Laterals averaged 40 ft in length at a reentry in the same section that was not as successful, Texaco said.
The operator is evaluating results, believes the wells showed horizontal drilling is applicable in the area, believes costs can be reduced, and may try further horizontal drilling in early 1991.
EAST TEXAS SUCCESS
Maersk asked Texas Railroad Commission approval to remove oil from a lease in the Brookeland field area of Sabine County, Tex.
The requests indicate that oil has been produced from the operator's 1 ARCO, in Jesse McGee survey, A-37, 13 miles south-southwest of Hemphill.
Maersk sought approval Oct. 16 to truck 1,500 bbl of oil and Oct. 30 to move 2,500 bbl of oil produced during drilling at 1 ARCO, in Jesse McGee survey, A-37, 13 miles south-southwest of Hemphill in the Brookeland field area.
The Maersk well is about one half mile south of the Brookeland field discovery well, a vertical hole completed in 1983 for 107 b/d of 44.9 gravity oil and 214 Mcfd of gas from Austin chalk at 8,840-80 ft, PI reports.
The nearest horizontal Austin chalk well is 150 miles southwest in Brazos County.
SILO COMPLETION
Union Pacific's 100% owned 1 McGahan 21-5, in the Silo field area 18 miles northeast of Cheyenne in Laramie County, Wyo., flowed 767 b/d of oil and 326 Mcfd of gas through a 37/64 in. choke with 60 psi flowing tubing pressure.
Horizontal displacement is 2,479 ft, of which 2,099 ft are within Niobrara.
UPRC's first horizontal well in the field, Antelope 9-11, pumped an average of 400 b/d of oil with 300 Mcfd of gas in the 2 weeks ended Nov. 29. Cumulative production during Oct. 10-Nov. 29 is more than 17,500 bbl of oil.
The McGahan well is 2 miles southwest of the Antelope well, and both are on the UP railroad land grant.
The McGahan took 30 days to drill. It cost $825,000 to drill, or nearly $1 million including completion.
UPRC is drilling two more Niobrara horizontal wells, neither of which is on the land grant. It owns or leases about 100,000 acres in the Silo field area.
Meanwhile, Gerrity Oil & Gas Corp., Denver, staked 10-1H State, in 10-15n-64w, in Silo field. True vertical depth is to be 7,855 ft in Niobrara.
MADISON VENTURE
Pennzoil received state approval to drill 26-13H Candee, in 26-24n-59e, Richland County, Mont., the state's first horizontal well in Mississippian Madison.
Pennzoil said the well will evaluate the fractured and porous Ratcliff reservoir and a fractured limestone in Mission Canyon on the north side of Ridgelawn field.
The well is about one half mile north of a well that has produced 141,000 bbl of oil from Mission Canyon.
Testimony at a hearing indicated Pennzoil expects Ratcliff in the vertical sequence to have 5 ft of 10% porosity and 50-75 ft of fracture pay. Upper Mission Canyon, which probably has no effective matrix porosity, is expected to contain 100-150 ft of fracture pay in the vertical section.
The targeted interval is about 350 ft thick in the vertical sequence. By drilling horizontally, it will penetrate about 3,000 ft of target interval, the company said.
NIOBRARA/FRONTIER TEST
Amoco staked 1-25H Morton Ranch-Fee, in 25-33n-72w, Converse County, Wyo. TVD is to be 11,626 ft in Frontier.
The well is to be drilled vertically to 11,400 ft, run logs, plug back to 10,300 ft, and kick off at 8/100 ft.
The company anticipates encountering Niobrara at an estimated TVD of 10,650 ft.
It plans to drill a 126 ft tangent section in Niobrara at TVDs of 11,103-169 ft, then build another curved section until achieving an angle of 77, penetrating Frontier at TVD 11,164 ft.
Amoco will evaluate Niobrara in the curved and tangent portions of the hole and Frontier in the horizontal segment through plugged port liner to be run from 10,000 ft to total depth.
EASTERN GAS TEST
BDM spudded 3997 Hunter Bennett, 44 miles northwest of Charleston in Millstone quadrangle, Lee district. It is on a CNG lease in Russet field, which produces oil and gas from Mississippian Big Injun.
Plan is to drill vertically to 2,810 ft, then kick off at about 2,000 ft and drill a 2,000 ft horizontal leg through Devonian Fifth sand.
The well is within 2 miles of Devonian gas production in three fields: Dekalb, Grantsville, and Yellow Creek.
Two horizontal wells were drilled in Wayne County, W. Va., in the mid-1980s.
BAKKEN PROGRESS
Maxus Exploration Co:, Dallas, plans to drill a horizontal Bakken wildcat in Stark County, N.D. Surface location would be in SW SE 15-139n-99w, with drilling to continue northeastward to a bottomhole spot in NE NE 15.
Location is about 1 mile south of Mississippian Heath oil production in Zenith field.
American Hunter Exploration Ltd. plans to drill 12-34H AHEL, in 34-146n-99w, McKenzie County, N.D., a horizontal Bakken wildcat 2 miles southeast of Grassy Butte field, which produces oil from Mississippian Madison and Devonian Duperow.
TVD is estimated at 11,345 ft, and the hole is to have a 2,960 ft horizontal section.
Double Eagle Petroleum & Mining Co., a Casper independent, said it owns more than 17,000 acres of leases in the Bakken play area in North Dakota and Montana and more than 20,000 acres of leases prospective for Niobrara horizontal drilling in southeast Wyoming and northern Colorado.
Montana Oil Journal, Billings, notes that thus far Bakken horizontal completions in wells east of the Bakken fairway, and particularly east of the Billings nose, have been discouraging.
Some of those in eastern Billings and McKenzie counties and apparently most of those in Dunn and Mountrail counties have encountered mechanical problems in the thicker Bakken shale sections, says MOJ.
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