Let's start with how the Niobrara compares with the very best....

Let's start with how the Niobrara compares with the very best.

Some results in the area

Here are the IP production curves.
Pay careful attention to grey lines vs days in production.
They don't peak until about 15-20 days after flow testing commences.

AKK stopped Pathfinder after 3 days, saying there was no point wasting the oil, liquids and gas since it was flowing at such high pressure. They knew, given the technical details that it was a very good result.

Most of the wells in the image below shoot up to about 600 BOEPD in about a week.

A few of them stay there, a few go over 1000 BOEPD, but most of them are between 600-800 BOEPD.

Here is another flow rate chart from Noble's Niobrara well in the Wttenberg

Details:
First extended reach lateral in Wattenberg
? Wells Ranch AE29-68HN – 9,120’ lateral with 39-stage frac
? D&C $7.5 MM
? EUR indications of 600+ MBoe
? Early results suggest 20% improvement in F&D cost ? 10% of wells will have long laterals in 2012"

Notice the flow rates go up from about 300-350 at around day 7, to about 900 BOEPD by day 30.


Some people want to tell you we've got a dud here. I wonder why they're so persistent? I know when I think a stock is a dud, I don't waste so much time focusing on it.

Pathfinder is a very good result.
350-400 BOE per day should equate to about 800-900 BOEPD if they had undertaken 30 days of production testing.


The smart money know this. Of course you're not going to get maximum flow rates from 3 days of testing!

But why do you think they shut the well after 3 days? Because it was a bloody ripper of a result.

That's why!