Huaneng the flow rates you quoted, whilst not "too juicy" are in fact the norm for the Bakken and should not be seen as a failure because the wells are still profitable at those rates. In fact MPO in their initial acquisition announcement in Aug 2009 stated a target of 110 bpd per well. So anything more is a bonus.
There is some level of experimentation that is required to get the optimal flow rate, not only initially but also after the first year of production. Petrobakken for example have found that a workover of a well actually leads to an increase in production after around the 200 day mark. There's a presentation on the Petrobakken web site with a couple of slides on this for anyone interested.
Another company has used a tactic where after an initial period of production - say one year - they use a production well as an injection well to inject water down the reservoir. This has the effect of pushing the oil into the next well, increasing pressure and therefore flow rates. Now companies are targeting both the Bakken as well as the Three Fork from the same well pad, increasing production more efficiently.
So as you can see there's a lot of things being tried because the industry still has a long way to go to unlocking the best method. I'm sure MPO is taking notice of all these methods and learning from them.
MPO Price at posting:
$1.08 Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
