XCL Resources

Where are the biggest shale wells being drilled today? Since 2023, we're forecasting >1 million barrel-equivalent ultimate production for 1,509 wells across Lower 48. The Permian dominates, but there are exciting developments in other basins too -- let's dig in! First, a little caveat: I am also filtering to wells with >750,000 barrels EUR, otherwise gas wells would dominate the list. Setting that aside, the Permian is the clear leader by this metric, with 1,449 million barrel wells drilled since 2023. The Delaware dominates, with over 90% of millionaire wells, reflecting the outlier nature of the basin. Taking out the Permian, the Uinta is the leading basin, with twenty-four 1MMBOE wells. Recently-acquired XCL Resources tops the ex-Permian chart with seventeen, and their in-basin neighbor Ovintiv comes in second with seven. (Shameless plug: reach out for a copy of our recent XCL-SM acquisition analysis to learn more about the deal). The Appalachian Utica comes in as the next-largest emerging million-boe play, with our models forecasting 10 wells since 2023 hitting that threshold. Encino, Antero, Ascent, and EOG show up on our list here. With a higher gas-fraction, these Utica-Pt. Pleasant wells standout on total recovery compared to the others on this list: they are essentially both massive oil and massive gas wells at the same time. Most of the remaining non-Permian million-boe wells are in classics like the Williston, Eagle Ford, and Anadarko, which are still turning out top-notch wells even 15+ years into their development. Impressive! #permian #uinta #utica #oilgas

With aggregate production over 100,000 barrels a day and per-well performance comparable to the Permian, the Uinta Basin unconventional plays have arrived. But with a unique geologic setting in an ancient lake, how much can we learn from other plays like the Permian? Here, I'm plotting 1-year well performance for the Uinta, Delaware, Williston, and Midland Basins. You'll notice that average performance in the Uinta (for wells since 2019) just beats out the other basins, though there still a large spread in outcomes. The Lower Green River / Upper Wasatch of the Uinta Basin is unique in that the rocks were deposited in a lacustrine setting, rather than a marine like the other plays shown here. Because of this, the wells produce a waxy crude oil that solidifies at room temperature, and traditional geologic analysis doesn't neatly cross-apply. In this URTeC study with geologists from XCL Resources--a leader in the play--we combined detailed geologic analysis with machine learning models to unpack performance drivers. Interestingly, the Uteland Butte, a more "unconventional" zone in the Lower Green River, showed strong performance influence from factors like overpressure and organic porosity, in addition to operator-controlled factors like completions design. The Castle Peak, a more conventional zone, was relatively more influenced by geological factors rather than operator-controlled ones. In comparison with the Permian and Williston, the Uteland Butte showed broadly similar modeled responsiveness to intensive completions and development densities. With thousands of feet of stacked pay zones, the future is bright for the play. Thanks to authors Josh Sigler and Luke Fidler for their work on this study! To learn more, attend our talk on Wednesday the 18th or visit our website to download the paper (link in picture). #oilgas #uinta #permian

With aggregate production over 100,000 barrels a day and per-well performance comparable to the Permian, the Uinta Basin unconventional plays have arrived. But with a unique geologic setting in an ancient lake, how much can we learn from other plays like the Permian? Here, I'm plotting 1-year well performance for the Uinta, Delaware, Williston, and Midland Basins. You'll notice that average performance in the Uinta (for wells since 2019) just beats out the other basins, though there still a large spread in outcomes. The Lower Green River / Upper Wasatch of the Uinta Basin is unique in that the rocks were deposited in a lacustrine setting, rather than a marine like the other plays shown here. Because of this, the wells produce a waxy crude oil that solidifies at room temperature, and traditional geologic analysis doesn't neatly cross-apply. In this URTeC study with geologists from XCL Resources--a leader in the play--we combined detailed geologic analysis with machine learning models to unpack performance drivers. Interestingly, the Uteland Butte, a more "unconventional" zone in the Lower Green River, showed strong performance influence from factors like overpressure and organic porosity, in addition to operator-controlled factors like completions design. The Castle Peak, a more conventional zone, was relatively more influenced by geological factors rather than operator-controlled ones. In comparison with the Permian and Williston, the Uteland Butte showed broadly similar modeled responsiveness to intensive completions and development densities. With thousands of feet of stacked pay zones, the future is bright for the play. Thanks to authors Josh Sigler and Luke Fidler for their work on this study! To learn more, attend our talk on Wednesday the 18th or visit our website to download the paper (link in picture). #oilgas #uinta #permian

Who's drilling the best unconventional wells in Lower 48? Time for an operator ranking! Here we're showing the top 25 best performing operators, based on average well performance since 2019. Lots of interesting details on here, let's dive in 👇 First, a little table-setting. This chart shows the average 12-month cumulative oil by current operator. 12 months is long enough to get a very good perspective on well productivity. Each operator here is colored by the basin that they primarily operate in, to give us an idea of WHERE this top performance has been occurring. Starting at the top, we have only four operators breaking the 200,000 barrels in one year barrier: Kaiser Francis, Coterra, Franklin Mountain, and XCL. Of the four, Coterra is by far the biggest with 467 oil wells over this timeframe - impressive! XCL Resources, focused on the Uinta Basin, is the big surprise up here for anyone not paying attention to the Uinta. It's the only non-Permian operator in the top 8, but its well performance stands with the best in Lower 48. XCL has been the main driver for the Uinta recently breaking 100,000 bbl/d from horizontal wells, quite the story. 14 of our top 25 here come from the Permian, with overrepresentation from the Delaware, but we do see strong performance from the Bakken, Utica, and Eagle Ford. Kraken from the Bakken (Williston Basin) and Ascent from the Utica (Appalachian Basin) show up at the tops of their basins, respectively. A few large operators (more than 1k oil wells over this period) crack the list. Devon, ConocoPhillips, and Marathon all rate well here, with Exxon, EOG, and Pioneer just behind them. Of course, with a larger development area and more wells, it's harder to have tip-top performance simply due to the averaging out over a larger area. Kudos! Anyone we should be looking at to crack into this list for the next 5 years, or any new basins? Let us know in the comments. #oilgas #permian #bakken #uinta