Murphy Oil (200+ BOPD)
Alberta Bakken Early Results "Encouraging But No Eagle Ford", Says Murphy CEO
Murphy Oil Corporation says it has drilled and completed its first two Exshaw shale appraisal wells in a six-well program in the Alberta Bakken play in southern Alberta.
"At this early stage, from what we have seen, it's encouraging but it's not an Eagle Ford (Texas)," David Wood, president and chief executive officer, said in a conference call to discuss first quarter 2011 results.
The wells are currently are being evaluated and while it's still early, "we are pleased the wells have flowed within our expectations," he said. "We will continue to add acreage in this new play as it fits within our understanding."
Because it plans to pick up additional land, he declined to provide more information about the wells.
"If we can get wells that are better than 200 bbls a day to start, then I would regard that as being good and I would say that the first two wells would get into that bucket," said Wood. "What we need to do is see some performance from those wells from initial flow and then put a pump on and see how they produce."
And while he would like to add more acreage, "I am not so sure I would add the acreage in the places that I was going to want to add the acreage prior to the well results."
For Wood, the keys in looking at the play are the presence of water and the kind of reservoir pressure. Water is going to be patchy with some parts of the play having it and some not while some areas will have more overpressure which would mean Murphy should expect better rates, he said.
DOB records show that Murphy rig released horizontal new pool wildcat wells with bottomhole locations of 16-04-001-20W4 and 14-02-002-21W4 in the Regan area earlier this year. The wells were drilled to total depths of 2,960 and 3,060 metres respectively with the Wabamun Group just below the Exshaw listed as the projected zone in both cases.