RE:Axe Gross oil revenues A little more perspective on rates of production: "ABOUT US ADVERTISE GET NEWS ALERTS JWN energy intelligence. NEWS REPORTS PRODUCTS EVENTS LEARNING FREE DAILY NEWS Search JWNEnergy.com Drilling & Completions Markets & Investment Oil & Gas Oilsands & Heavy Oil Service & Supply Baytex resumes Canadian drilling with first multilateral at Lloydminster By Deborah Jaremko Tuesday, March 7, 2017, 7:48 AM MST Baytex Energy Corp. is back to the drill bit in Canadian heavy oil, as promised in its 2017 capital budget announcement late last year. The company says it has kicked off its 2017 drilling program at Peace River and Lloydminster with multilateral wells that are coming in below budget. At Peace River, where Baytex currently has two rigs running, the first well from the 2017 program consisted of 13 laterals and came in approximately seven percent below budget, the company says. This well was placed on production in early February and established a 30-day average initial production rate of approximately 600 bbl/d. Baytex plans to drill a total of 11 net multilateral horizontal wells and eight net stratigraphic test wells at Peace River in 2017. The cost to drill, complete and equip a multilateral well at Peace River is approximately $2.5 million, which is an expected 11 percent improvement from the cost of the wells we drilled in Q3/2015, the company says. Multilaterals are also being drilled for the first time at Llodyminster, which is expected to lead to a 25 percent improvement in capital efficiencies compared to single-lateral horizontal wells. In January, we commenced drilling operations on our operated lands for the first time in over a year and a half, Baytex says. With a focused effort on reducing our drilling and completion costs, we expect our Lloydminster heavy oil program to generate rates of return in excess of 75 percent at current commodity prices. Baytex says it has drilled six of eight Lloydminster region multilateral horizontal wells planned for the first quarter of 2017, with 16 multilateral horizontal wells are planned for the full-year. Depending on the overall length and completion, well costs range from $700,000 to $900,000 with an average 30-day initial production rate of approximately 130 bbl/d. Through efficient operational execution and lower service costs, the cost to drill, complete and equip our first six multi-lateral wells have come in approximately 15 percent below budget with 30-day initial production rates either meeting or exceeding expectations. Our most recent two wells are expected to generate 30-day initial production rates of approximately 175 bbl/d.