Even in its present funk, the shale oil industry will still have some dynamic hot spots.
Bernstein Research examined North American 2014’s wells with peak rates greater than 1,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d). The so-called “Thousand Club” should provide the area of resource play hot spots in 2015.
“We expect that 1,000 barrels of oil equivalent is a good if arbitrary cutoff to separate the elite plays from other plays, being representative of an economically highly attractive flow rate given sufficiently low costs,” said Bob Brackett, senior analyst, Bernstein.
Unsurprisingly, 93% of the Thousand Club wells were in the America’s sweetheart shale plays: the Eagle Ford, Utica, Marcellus and Bakken.
“Of the emerging plays we highlighted last year, the Cane Creek Shale, Buda, Olmos, Hunton, Turner (Frontier), and Parkman all repeated,” Brackett said.
The Powder River Basin’s Hunton and Turner plays are most intriguing, given the level of industry activity, Brackett said.
Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) and EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG) are favorably exposed to the areas.
New, emerging plays make a surprising appearance in the Thousand Club. In the Appalachian Basin, reservoirs such as the Genesee (Geneseo/Burket), Trenton, Clinton and Heidlersburg Shale all join the club.
Such rates show how deeply the northeast gas inventory might run. Range Resources (NYSE: RRC), Southwestern Energy Co. (NYSE: SWN) and Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. (NYSE: COG) are the most exposed to the area.
However, the depth of low-cost inventory could also be perceived as a worry for oversupply of gas.
In the Michigan Basin, a single well joined the club. The well drilled in Michigan’s eponymous basin by Encana Corp. (NYSE: ECA) is an outlier to an overall disappointing area. ECA is heavily levered to the Collingwood/A-1 Carbonate with 430,000 acres.
“We do not particularly want exposure to the Michigan Basin,” Brackett said.
EOG and CHK have the best leverage opportunities in emerging resource plays, while many other companies, such as Penn Virginia Corp. (NYSE: PVA), Swift Energy Co. (NASDAQ: SFY), and Halcon Resources (NASDAQ: HK) also have exposure to them.
Texas, Pennsylvania and North Dakota account for nearly 75% of the onshore Thousand Club. Of the wells examined, 2,363 wells qualified.
Top basins show a fairly even mix of oil and gas wells, an outcome tied to favorable oil drilling economics and the lack of needing to drill and hold gassy acreage, Brackett said.
The wells are measured in oil equivalency, though, and don’t reflect price differences between natural gas and oil, he added.
For wells of 1,000 bbl/d, about 500 were identified and include conventional and unconventional reservoirs. Texas dominated the field, in particular because of Eagle Ford production. Combined with North Dakota, the two states made up 85% of the Thousand Club wells.
In the Anadarko Basin, Thousand Club wells are found in the Granite Wash, Cleveland, Woodford, Mississippi Lime and Marmaton.
The typical age of the Granite Wash is Des Moines; hence the terms "Granite Wash" typically (but not always) refers to Des Moines reservoirs. The Marmaton is a Granite Wash-type opportunity.
The new Douglas Shale entered the Thousand Club with a well drilled by Linn Energy LLC (NASDAQ: LINE).
“The formation includes the Tonkawa so it may simply be a more generally described Tonkawa well,” Brackett said.
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