The production has steadily gone down to very little since the Fall of 2024, the same year it was drilled. I looked on the RRC website, and it shows the drilling permit has problems and is currently unapproved and in Engineering status. On the CONG website, drilling permit #895891, shows little production for the past several months. Are these connected or is the well just not a good producer? This is Continental Resources.
Look at the Bruce Bar two mile lateral due north of the Jackrabbit well. Its has seven years of production. Seems strange that its production is still approximately 50% of it highest production month. Shouldn’t it be more like 10-20%?
The RRC Permits page shows three permits for the Jackrabbit well. One of them is dated Dec 2024 and the status is shown as “Engineering.” The December permit has a total depth of 10,800’ which is 300’ deeper than the earlier permits. Is it possible Continental Resources is throttling down production so that a new lateral can be drilled? Or could Jackrabbit become a multi-lateral well?! Or is it much more likely that the the 10,500’ lateral would be abandoned in favor of a lower one? I also see that there is a protest before the RRC and a number of individuals are being represented by an attorney in San Antonio. Could Continental Resources be slowly shutting in the Jackrabbit well’s production until a determination is made by the RRC about the protests from some of the owners? Sorry I don’t have more info or expertise.
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All good ideas. Thank you for looking at this!
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Despite the multiple permits, only one lateral has been drilled at the Jackrabbit well (API 42-495-34927). Based on the directional survey (public record via Tx RRC site), this was a 10,428’ lateral that had a TVD of 10,360’ at the heel and 10,428[’ TVD at the toe. It is interesting that the TVD of the lateral dropped to about 10,770’ in the middle of the lateral (about 5000’ out). Why was this done? May be following the structure in this area along the 10,000’ lateral path. Or the lateral path may have been adjusted to “get back into target zone”. No way of knowing what the operator’s intent was for this type of information.
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Appreciate this analysis and new info!!
No way this Jackrabbit can be a multi-lateral well. This could only occur if these were open hole completions with no casing that didn’t require casing (and stimulation). An example of that would the naturally fractured Austin Chalk in South Texas.
Setting and cementing production casing in a well like the Jackrabbit (which has 5.5" casing to the end of the lateral) precludes using this wellbore to drill a new lateral at a different TVD / target zone.
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Last comment on this AJ 11 post - I am 99.9% confident in saying that Continental would not purposefully “slow down” production from this or any other wellbore as they wait on the determination of any ongoing, pending or planned protest. They still need to make money and as much production as is feasibly possible without focusing on things that are beyond their control.
Also a note @ production decline - the 50% of best producing month present rate after 7 years is interesting - but one should not always assume that production decline should be in the 10-20% or lower range after this 7-year time period. It is very possible that the operator is choking back production to control decline and optimize EUR over time (note - the choking back process to achieve better overall per well recovery has proven to be very successful in many areas over the past 15-20 years)
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After looking at the reported production data, I would have to say that this is just a bad well. The increase from Aug 24 to Sept 24 was probably tied to installing tubing in the wellbore to increase annular velocity (and thereby increase production rate).
Why is this well bad? Lots of possibilities but the most probable is that the target interval and subsequent stimulated rock volume (or frac’d interval) is of low quality as to its ability to produce good O&G volumes. Could be tied to clay content and ductility (and therefore more difficult to frac). Or just the fact that this is less Oil in Place in this interval.
Geology matters - and heterogeneity in any reservoir is the norm. The selection of target intervals and then staying in those target intervals is critical to getting a good well.
It is also possible that this lateral got “out of zone” while it was being drilled and therefore only has a small percentage of the lateral in the target zone. I have commented on the deeper TVD in the middle of this lateral in another post - very possible operator got out of zone and tried to correct lateral path to get into zone (but lost a lot of prospective section in the lateral due to being out of zone)
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Thank you! I hope the Bullsnake in Sec. 14 that they are currently drilling and the following one they plan on drilling in Sec. 15 don’t run into these problems. But it’s interesting to know the challenges of drilling wells.
how is the bullsnake well progressing
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Only know that well was spud on March 10th and rig is still on location
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thanks for the report-just knowing continental is still drilling is a fun-bit of knowledge.
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