Niobrara (CO & WY) – update through May 2017

This is an older blog post, you will find one on more recent data here

This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data from 6496 selected horizontal wells in the Niobrara region (Colorado & Wyoming) through May.

The sharp increase that I reported in my last Niobrara update for March has continued through May. The almost 400 wells brought online in the first 5 months of the year were already producing 50% more oil in that month than the more than 800 wells that started production last year.

Gas production rose as well, and the horizontal wells in these 2 counties are now producing more than 2 Bcf/day.

Horizontal wells were drilled in the beginning of 2017 with lateral lengths that were on average 15% longer than in the year before, to about 7.5k feet in Colorado, and more than 8k feet in Wyoming, while proppant volumes increased with more than 20%. As you can see in the “Well quality” overview, the impact of these changes on initial productivity have been quite significant.

The “Well status” tab shows the status of all these wells. The number of drilled, but uncompleted wells, has risen strongly in the past year, which probably means that more production increases can be expected from this region.

The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below:

This lateral map was first shown in the latest Eagle Ford update. Now it shows you the exact locations of all these horizontal laterals in Weld county (CO). You can zoom in to see the layout of these wells in more detail, while tooltips are available that reveal more information. Wells are colored by the current operator. You can click on the legend to highlight the wells of a particular operator, or use the selection boxes at the bottom to narrow down your selection.

The next tab,  the “Ultimate recovery” overview, also shows the strong increase in initial production for wells that started since Q4 2016.

I am working on a major upgrade of the Texas data, which I aim to show in the next posts on the Eagle Ford and the Permian, in the [changed!] second week of September.

Production data is subject to revisions.

For this presentation, I used data gathered from the following sources:

• Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission
• Wyoming Oil & Gas Conservation Commission
• FracFocus.org

====BRIEF MANUAL====

The above presentation has many interactive features:

• You can click through the blocks on the top to see the slides.
• Each slide has filters that can be set, e.g. to select individual or groups of operators. You can first click “all” to deselect all items. You have to click the “apply” button at the bottom to enforce the changes. After that, click anywhere on the presentation.
• Tooltips are shown by just hovering the mouse over parts of the presentation.
• You can move the map around, and zoom in/out.
• By clicking on the legend you can highlight selected items.
• Note that filters have to be set for each tab separately.
• The operator who currently owns the well is designated by “operator (current)”. The operator who operated a well in a past month is designated by “operator (actual)”. This distinction is useful when the ownership of a well changed over time.
• If you have any questions on how to use the interactivity, or how to analyze specific questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Enno Peters

Enno Peters is General Manager at Novi, where he has build an AI-driven data & analytics platform tailored for oil & gas operators and energy investors. Prior to Novi, Enno founded ShaleProfile which was acquired by Novi late 2021.