some more analysis of gretel & abercombie

Abercrombie production data for the month of May is now available on the Montana O&G website - see website table below:

9604 bbls of oil / 25 production days = 384 bopd for May. Interestingly, that's almost spot on the best month average bopd rate of 385 for wells with long laterals in the sample of 43 wells which I analysed and posted around a month ago.

Looking at Gretel, the company announced that it is potentially within a zone of minor fault lines southeast of the surface expression of the Brockton fault line. I've superimposed as accurately as I can the approximate location of the Brockton fault line on the map of Samson's FP acreage. Additionally I've placed a 2nd line parallel to the Brockton fault, and which entirely contains the lateral length of the Gretel well. The company's statement on this matter is that if it is minor faults in this zone which have impacted on Gretel's results (not confirmed yet), then this has an implication for as much as 1/3 of the acreage - i.e. roughly all Samson's acreage to the northwest of that line parallel to the Brockton fault:

In the image above, the location for one of Brigham's wells is shown - the Beck 15-10 1-H. This well was included in the sample that analysed a month ago. It ranked 14th out of 43 wells for best month bopd rate (338 bopd in August last year), and has now produced 17,130 bbls of oil over 131 production days - an average of 131 bopd.

What's interesting about the Beck well is that it is also located within that same zone of possible minor faulting to the southeast of the Brockton fault. The Brockton fault is a very uniform fault structure, which is why the company's statement about Gretel's results to date advise that the result has a potential impact on that zone covering almost 1/3 of the company's acreage. Yet the Beck well has demonstrated successful production in a location within that same distance from the Brockton fault.

The implication of the two results combined (Gretel and Beck) is that the faulting within that zone - if it is what's affecting Gretel's results - is not necesarily uniform to the extent that that whole zone is affected.

Does that mean its worth drilling another well in that part of the FP acreage? While the Beck well demonstrates that there is potential within that zone, I would say based on the above data that this zone is high risk, because of the Gretel result to date, and therefore the answer would have to be that another well in this area would not be advisable. Having said that, since Beck obviously does demonstrate there is usable acreage in that zone, to de-risk it would require a 3D seismic survey to get a full picture of any fault structure within that zone. Therefore, if the company does shoot a 3D survey, which TB has stated is his intention, the company could recover part of that acreage - assuming Gretel doesnt improve in the meantime with frac fluid recovery.

Cheers, Sharks.