American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2018 - 99

SpecialReport: Rockies Profile
ing, but Horton notes that the correct
recipe varies from the Niobrara to the
Codell. It is not cookie cutter.
"It is fascinating," she marvels. "The
recipe is different on each well. It takes a
lot of work on technology and looking at
data to find the right recipe. We use big
data analytics as we study surface data
and mix them with completion design."
Because of its Land Grant advantage,
Horton says, Anadarko typically owns
every other section in its two-section
drilling units. "We receive a 40 percent
uplift because of that, based on $50 West
Texas Intermediate and $3 Henry Hub
prices," she reveals. "Because we own
the mineral rights on much of our acreage,
our break-even price is $20 a barrel. We
are very resilient to service cost increases,
and our asset generates significant free
cash flow. The DJ Basin is a powerful
piece of our portfolio that can fund other
growth areas and contribute to discretionary cash flow."
Williston Basin
C. Mark Pearson acknowledges that
there has been a slowdown from the
earlier breakneck pace of drilling in the
Bakken/Three Forks play in North Dakota
as some companies have "exited for the
big rush to the Permian Basin."
"But we have been drilling continuously since 2015," says Pearson, president
and chief executive officer of Liberty
Resources II LLC.
The Liberty team has been working
the Bakken since 2009, according to
Pearson, first in the Central Basin, which
is considered the core of the Bakken. It
sold its assets in mid-2013 for $680
million and then re-entered the basin in
2014 as Liberty Resources II.
Today, the company has 100,000 net
acres in the North Nesson Anticline area
of the Williston Basin, and Pearson says
Liberty is finding great success, even
though the North Nesson Anticline is not
considered to be in the Bakken core.
"We are on our Generation 5 completion design," Pearson remarks. "We are
able to squeeze more out of the rocks.
These wells are economic at $50 a barrel
and very economic at $60 a barrel."
He claims Liberty has been among
the best in the basin in well performance,
and was the first to use high-intensity

Liberty Resources' Leon central production facility has been operating since February
2015, handling production from 17 wells. It provides four stages of gas capture and threephase metering for each well. Liberty has been working in the Bakken Shale since 2009
and was the ﬁrst to utilize high-intensity slickwater fractures. It holds 100,000 net acres
in the North Nesson Anticline area of the Williston Basin.

slickwater fracs in 2009.
Improved economics as well as improved completion design and drilling
efficiency have contributed to Liberty's
success in the North Nesson Anticline,
Pearson says, where it is operating one
rig at the moment, but plans to add a second later this year.
Because these wells produce a high
water cut (as much as 60 percent), Pearson
says Liberty uses jet pumps for the first
couple years. Liberty's wells have EURs
of 700,000-850,000 boe (80 percent oil)
with a gas-to-oil ratio of 1,500-2,000.
Pearson says his company is drilling
three-mile laterals. "The industry has
drilled 150 laterals longer than 2.5 miles
in the Bakken, mostly to reach around
surface issues such as drilling under Lake
Sakakawea," he notes. "But we are doing
it for pure economics. Drilling a threemile lateral gives you 40-45 percent more
product at only 20 percent more cost."
Liberty plans to drill seven more wells
this year, four of which will be threemile laterals. Cost is $8.4 million a well,
according to Pearson.
Because of the improvements in technology and completion design, Pearson
claims Liberty's wells in the North Nesson
Anticline are better than its wells in the
Central Basin core were three or four
years ago. "Our rate of return on these
wells with $50 oil is higher than it was
with $95 oil in 2013," he emphasizes.

"That shows the improvements in efficiency and cost reduction."
Enhanced Oil Recovery
Liberty Resources has received approval to begin a rich-gas enhanced oil
recovery test in July in the Bakken, which
Pearson says will be the industry's first
drill-site spacing unit full miscible injectant
pilot. He describes it as an "ethane-richgas huff-and-puff." He says waterfloods
won't work in unconventional plays, so
the industry needs to move straight to
tertiary recovery.
The Bakken-produced gas has favorable
miscibility, Pearson points out. The rich
gas is an effective solvent for oil recovery
and thus works as well as carbon dioxide
in an EOR project. Consequently, he
says, Liberty is taking the produced gas
from its own wells and injecting it into
six cemented-casing wells on a pad that
was drilled three years ago.
"We are excited about the project,"
Pearson exclaims. "We will take the 20
percent ethane and 60 percent methane
gas and compress it into our producing
wells. There will be a one- to two-month
injection cycle, so we will need six months
to see how we are doing."
He says projections from reservoir
simulations and laboratory studies predict
enhanced oil recovery will produce an
additional 250,000-500,000 barrels of oil
per well.
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JULY 2018 99

American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2018

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