Woodford Oil Congress 2014

The Woodford Shale, covering virtually the entire state of Oklahoma, is far more complex then other shales found in North America. Yet it is still rapidly emerging as a major unconventional energy resource due to the recent oil discoveries that could transform the economics of the play. The formation is estimated to contain large residual concentrations of hydrocarbons with data from various studies confirming 400 million barrels of recoverable oil and 250 million barrels of valuable condensate as well as associated gas. These figures combined with local production results from naturally fractured reservoirs, recent unconventional production results from the Woodford Shale in Oklahoma and successes in unconventional resource recovery from similar formations, clearly indicate that the Woodford Shale is an undoubtedly compelling exploration target.

Many of the Woodford's largest oil fields are found in the Anadarko, Arkoma, and Ardmore geologic basins and their associated shelves and platforms, with the lower Anadarko Woodford basin attracting the greatest attention due to it's high oil reserves. Attention is rapidly turning to the possibility of unlocking these resources on a commercial scale using the same horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques that have prized millions of barrels of oil and condensates from Bakken and Eagle Ford.

But operators are faced with a high risk, high reward conundrum; the high liquids content of these wells promise operators with high rates of return but the formation is extremely difficult to drill due to its complexities and the fact that the organic material in the Woodford Shale is not well understood. This complexity is especially evident in southern Oklahoma where the Woodford consists of alternating bands of chert-like amorphous silica and silica-rich shale. The area's complex structural geology and mineralogy have broad implications, affecting drilling and completion design, production practices and ultimately well productivity. Additionally the Woodford is even deeper than Bakken and Eagle Ford, resulting in escalated drilling and completions costs. Woodford wells are between 6,000 and 11,000 feet deep and cost $3 million on average to drill and complete - but with ultimate recovery estimated to be between 2 and 2.5 bcfe per well, operators are now deeming it a high ROI pursuit and moving forward with operation scale up.