This artiicle appeared in todays Bismarck tribune. don Oct 19, 2008 - 04:05:15 CDT By BRIAN DUGGAN and LAUREN DONOVAN Bismarck Tribune A dramatic decline in the price of oil is good news for consumers, but it will likely chill the hot action across some areas in North Dakota's Bakken oil formation.
With an estimated recoverable reserve of 4.3 billion barrels, the Bakken and associated oil layers have attracted dozens of drillers and 85 rigs into the state, the most since the last oil boom in the early '80s. Strong prices for oil, including this summer's all-time high of more than $160 a barrel, helped lubricate a play in which one well alone costs as much as $5 million. With oil now touching in at $70 a barrel, it's likely some producers will pull away from areas where they had been looking to expand. Lynn Helms, director of the state's Department of Natural Resources, said he doesn't expect changes in the main core of the Bakken - Dunn, McKenzie and Mountrail counties - but acknowledges the perimeter of the Bakken play could be affected. "This oil price is going to dampen expansion of the play but it's not going to lead to collapse of the Bakken play or the play going away," Helms said. "The main areas are very solid." Helms said the expansion areas are in trouble. However, he said there is no single oil price floor that applies statewide. The old rule of thumb of $65 to $75 a barrel to support the Bakken is less true with drilling technology that increases well output from an average of 250 barrels two years ago to 650 barrels a day today in some places. "Mountrail is performing so well with the new technology that break- even prices for those kinds of wells is down around $20 a barrel," Helms said. Those wells used to break even around $60. "Mountrail is the exception to the rule," Helms said. For Dunn and East McKenzie counties, where 32 rigs are in operation, the break-even price is about $40 a barrel. Trouble spots are in Burke County at an $80 break-even range and Divide at $55, along with Ward and McLean counties, he said. "The core areas where we've got 60 rigs running are very solid even at these oil prices. But for the outlaying areas - Divide, Burke and Williams - it's a very different picture," Helms said. Oil companies are reticent to talk about their positions, especially publicly traded companies that are vulnerable to rapid dynamics in the stock market. Two of those - Marathon Oil and Continental Resources, both actively drilling the Bakken in Dunn and McKenzie counties - are scheduled for quarterly conference calls with stockholders and market analysts and may comment on market conditions and drilling plans then. Continental's spokesman said the company will talk after its Nov. 6 conference call, and Marathon's spokeswoman said her company hasn't announced any change in its Bakken plans, and projections will be included in its January budget. Rick Ross, vice president of operations for Whiting Oil, which is drilling in the Mountrail County portion of the Bakken, said his company has drilled "very prolific" wells there "and we can stand a lower price than in other places." Ross said each company has its own tolerance in the market. "It's not that we all fall off the table at once," he said. "There's a huge range." He said his company has not made a decision to slow down. "I don't see it changing for us," Ross said. Whiting has 22 completed wells and eight in various stages of drilling and completion. Half of its 190,000 leased acres are in the Sanish and Parshall fields on the Bakken. Ron Ness, head of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said that while price tolerance varies from one oil company to the next, he is hearing concern, not only from drillers, but secondary businesses that support the industry. "I have heard a lot of nervousness," Ness said. "The threshold for each company will be different." The canary in the oil "coal mine," is generally leasing activity, he said. When mineral acreage leasing falls quiet, it's a sign something's amiss. McLean County recorder Dewey Oster said he has seen less foot traffic from landmen researching minerals acres, but he doesn't know whether it's due to available land all leased up, or less interest in that far range of the Bakken play. Brenda Cook, the recorder for Mercer County - an expansion zone where leasing had been fairly hot and one rig moved in last month - said she's seeing half the number of landmen in the past few weeks. She said she thinks oil prices are one aspect, but says, "They may have leased up the land they're looking for." Landmen tend to be tightlipped, she said. In Dunn County, recorder Chris Larsen said she's recording 20 leases day, down from a peak of 50. She thinks it's less a price issue than one of opportunity. "I think it's because everybody is pretty much leased up," she said. 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