American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2022 - 54

SpecialReport: Rocky Mountain Playmakers
Hutchings says in some cases, Enerplus
is going back to original pads and drilling
six-eight additional wells.
Enerplus first entered the Williston
Basin 17 years ago in Montana and then
purchased its core asset on the Fort
Berthold Indian Reservation in North
Dakota 12 years ago. The company sold
its Montana position and its Russian
Creek acreage in North Dakota in the
fourth quarter of last year, Hutchings reports,
but it expanded its footprint with
the acquisition of acreage in Dunn County,
N.D., south of the reservation.
" We have had a long track record of
returning value to our shareholders, "
Hutchings comments. " We have been
disciplined in our approach to debt. That
served us well coming out of the downturn.
We were able to buy assets right in
our backyard. "
He says the most recent acquisition
has not seen much drilling activity in the
past several years. " We will experiment
with new frac designs in our new areas, "
he offers.
After selling its Montana and Russian
Creek leases, Enerplus has 238,000 acres
in the Bakken, where it is operating two
rigs and one frac crew. Hutchings says
the company plans to drill and complete
45 net operated and nonoperated wells
in 2022, (35 of them operated wells). He
adds that most of its wells are 10,000foot
laterals.
Three-Mile Laterals
Denver-based Liberty Resources, which
operates 100 producing wells in the
Bakken Shale play in the Williston Basin
in North Dakota, is significantly extending
its reach.
" All our legacy well laterals are still
two miles, but most of our new wells are
three-mile laterals, " says Liberty Resources
Chairman Chris Wright. " We have just
under 100,000 acres in northeast Williams
County in the northern Nesson Anticline. "
With Liberty Resources running one
rig and planning to drill 24 new wells in
2022, it seems worthwhile to consider the
challenges of drilling three-mile laterals.
" Early on, the challenge was drilling
out the plugs, " Wright explains. " Historically,
it was thought that you could not
drill out the plugs that far out, so a lot of
companies did sliding sleeves. But we
have never done that. We have always
designed full plug-and-perf completions,
even on three-mile laterals. "
He says three-mile laterals produce
1.4-1.5 times as much crude oil as twomile
laterals. The extra expense associated
with drilling and completing the additional
mile scales up only marginally in terms
of total well cost, which makes drilling
longer laterals a good economic decision.
The amount of water used for hydraulic
fracturing " depends on where we are, "
Wright observes.
" Twelve years ago in the Bakken,
when much of the industry was pumping
100-150 pounds of sand per lateral foot, "
he explains, " we were pumping 400
pounds/foot. The industry migrated to
higher frac intensity, but you can go too
high. Too much water tends to migrate
and connect with the groundwater. We
have settled on 800 pounds/foot. "
Wright also notes that market pricing
of Bakken sweet crude has improved
with expanded regional takeaway capacity.
" On contracted prices, we are getting a
full WTI price, " he relates. " On spot, we
are selling at a $1-$3/bbl premium. Gas
prices are strong, too. We have our own
midstream business where we gather and
process the gas. We are getting $7/MMBtu
when we sell residue gas, so drilling economics
today are as strong as they have
ever been. "
The Bakken is producing more than 1
MMbbl/d, but Wright believes that gas
processing and gas takeaway is " the limiter "
to significant growth of Bakken production.
Nevertheless,
he has high praise for
North Dakota's regulatory and political
environment. " It is common sense, " he
assesses, crediting the regulatory environment
in the state as well as the increased
oil takeaway capacity as the reason for
the Bakken's favorable oil differentials.
Completion Optimization
Liberty Resources is extending
lateral lengths to three miles
in the 24 new drills on the
schedule this year across its
100,000-acre leasehold in the
Bakken Shale play. Each threemile
lateral produces 1.4-1.5
times as much oil as a twomile
lateral, yet the expense of
drilling and completing the additional
mile adds only marginally
to total well cost, making
drilling longer laterals a sound
economic decision.
54 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER
Despite having drilled thousands of
horizontal wells into the Niobrara and
Codell formations in the DJ Basin in
Colorado, Wright says the industry still
has not settled on a preferred set of parameters
for well spacing or frac design.
Wright also carries the title of the executive
chairman and chief executive officer
of Liberty Energy, a frac fleet
operator and completion services company.
" Liberty Energy has fractured more than
half of the horizontal wells in the DJ
Basin. We are the largest stimulation
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