We have horizontal drilling that has started on through property where we have existing vertical wells with the same operator. We have no experience with horizontal well. Our understanding is that there are 15 wells being drilled that are approximately 10,000 ft deep and 2 miles in length horizontal. The pads are located very close together with one rig doing all the drilling. This appears to be a very common way of horizontal drilling in the Permian. We were interested in obtaining a way to estimate the timeline from start of drilling to start of production and as much general need to know information for royalty owners in this same position. Does the operator bring the wells online as they are completed or do they have to wait to complete the entire group due to close proximity? Crown Quest, a quality private operator, is drilling the wells and they are doing numerous projects in this area. Thank you very much, your depth of knowledge and experience is greatly appreciated.
Looks like Crownquest is drilling in at least five West Texas counties. You might have a better shot at getting information you need by posting your question under the section of the forum that covers your county. At the top of this page go to Counties to find that area.
You’re right that multiple horizontal wells being drilled from the same pad is common in the Permian and other areas. If several wells are being drilled on a pad within the same time frame operators often wait until all the drilling is done to start fracing. The rig is often moved a few feet on the pad to drill the next well so all the drilling can be done using the same rig. Then they gain efficiency by fracing the wells in sequence using the same crews and spread of equipment that only have to set up once.
It’s hard to estimate how long it will take from completion of drilling until wells are fraced and put in production, specially when it involves multiple wells from the same pad. The timing can be impacted by things like the availability of frac crews and equipment or the time required to make connection to a gathering system.
Since Crownquest appears to have drilled a lot of recent wells so you might get an idea of their timing by researching them using the Railroad Commission’s online records. On RRC’s website I’d start at the permits section for your county, or others near you, and pull up the permits Crowquest has filed in the last couple of years. You can check the permits for spud dates or go to the Competion Report section and look for completion dates using the permit numbers of those wells. The Production Report section of the site will show the month the well went online. There is often a lag in reports being filed. Once you have the permit numbers for wells a lot of this information can be accessed directly from RRC’s interactive map.
Thank you for the insight. I used the RRC site and researched spud to completion for each operator, as you suggested. From that info I was able to calculate the time to production for these multi well sights based on other multi wells sites drilled by the same operator. A very big thank you for your guidance. A new question has arisen that I thought you might have some experience with. What happens to the existing producing vertical wells when horizontal wells are drilled across the same area? Are the wells shut down? Is production levels impacted temporarily and of permanently? How do the operators compensate for this lose of revenue, or do they? I’m sure the answers vary from operator to operator, but is there a general understanding? Thank You
The answer depends on the completion depth of the original vertical wells you are talking about, and the units they were drilled in.
If those vertical wells were completed in a different formation than the new horizontal wells then the production from the new wells shouldn’t effect the older wells. You should be able to determine the formation and completion depths by checking the drilling permits for both sets of wells on RRC.
If the new wells are producing from a different formation then new, larger units were probably formed for those wells. The new units may include some of the same acreage that was in the vertical units but the unit boundaries would be at a totally different depth. If the mineral interest you own covers the full depth of both the vertical and horizontal production, and the new horizontal wells are drilled as “pooled” wells then your share of production would relate to interest you own in that new, larger pooled unit rather than the interest you have in the original vertical unit. If the new horizontal wells were drilled as “allocation” wells then you’ll need to learn how that division of royalty is determined.
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