Production Rates VERY Low

In Montague County, at least, it seems that nearly all the wells have been held to less than 100 barrels of oil per day production - anyone know why?

Are you talking about EOG wells? I have 3 newly producing wells in Montague county. The initial production rate was between 450 and 600 bpd. I don't know how long EOG will hold that rate or when they will crank it back. I think they will hold production long enough to pay for the wells but beyond that I have no idea.

Per well or total?

Total - such as most of the wells in the specific reports are reporting 300 or so for the MONTH.

May I ask what reports you're referring to? Are these reports online or just specific to your royalties?

It is on the RRC Production reports for a specific lease - you have to know your lease number to use it - depending on when your wells came online they might or might not be reporting yet and these are supposed to be actual numbers. All of this is open records, so anyone can look at the information - if you don't mind telling me the lease number I can help you look it up. I've come to learn the hard way that the initial production rates don't mean anything really. I asked this question in one of the forums and was told that it is a calculation that we should not hang our hats on because I was told that my wells were going to be good for 900 bpd and 2million cubic feet of gas per day and it is NOT happening! So I asked the question of WHY here and got the answers that I suspected - they cut way back in order to make the wells last the 20-30 years they proclaim. Quite a disappointment.

Here's the website:

http://webapps.rrc.state.tx.us/PDQ/home.do

Be sure to click on the Specific Lease query

Thanks for the info. It is greatly appreciated.

Susan,

Just a comment on your disappointment on lower than expected production rates. Coming from the operations side of the industry, there are only two reasons for which an operating company would curtail a well's production. The first is if the state has set allowable production volumes and the operater must choke back production to meet the state's guidelines. The second reason would be of production equipment and facilities were under-designed and are not capable of handling the volumes the well actually produces.

From an economic standpoint, it is in the best interest of the operating company to produce as much oil and gas early in the life of the well (particularly when oil prices are near $100/bbl) in order to recover the cost of drilling the well. Production 20 to 30 years down the road is nearly worthless to a company today due to the concept of the time-value of money. Essentially, $100 20 years from now is not worth the same as $100 today (because I could invest $100 today at some interest rate, and in 20 years have significantly more than $100).

I hope this helps a little.

Susan Nolen said:

It is on the RRC Production reports for a specific lease - you have to know your lease number to use it - depending on when your wells came online they might or might not be reporting yet and these are supposed to be actual numbers. All of this is open records, so anyone can look at the information - if you don't mind telling me the lease number I can help you look it up. I've come to learn the hard way that the initial production rates don't mean anything really. I asked this question in one of the forums and was told that it is a calculation that we should not hang our hats on because I was told that my wells were going to be good for 900 bpd and 2million cubic feet of gas per day and it is NOT happening! So I asked the question of WHY here and got the answers that I suspected - they cut way back in order to make the wells last the 20-30 years they proclaim. Quite a disappointment.

Thanks John! This is good information to know! I know our wells were damaged when another company accidently frac'd into our wells, and basically the production had to start all over again, but that was back in February - I doubt that is the reason for the low production rates for today though. What do you think?

Richard I am glad to here that you are haveing some luck with the three.I have just a ? to you,how do you find out the well # or rig they are useing.I have some rights there in Montague tx. and just ctan't find out if they are in production. It has been a little over 8 months that I found out about this. My Dad passed and the EOG Resources landman found me 16 years after his death an informed me that the 240+ or-was left to me.they changed landmen and the 2nd dropped a boom on me when he said they were somethings that had to be finished up , but they had already been working the wells that where there. I have not recived a DO or whatever it is that tells me anything.The oil and minerals rights have been in my family for 60 years. I am just now finding out from paperwork due to Warranty Deed. I just signed the lease 29 0f dec.2011. Could you tell me who I can get the info from to find out if they are in production? My last lesson on being in the fog was to send an e-mail to the royalties people I think at EOG to see if they are now in charge,due to the little info that the landman could give me. Thanks for your blog reply to one of the other folks,it seems that at the moment they have my head under the oil. Dennis M McCracken

Richard Downs Byrd said:

Are you talking about EOG wells? I have 3 newly producing wells in Montague county. The initial production rate was between 450 and 600 bpd. I don't know how long EOG will hold that rate or when they will crank it back. I think they will hold production long enough to pay for the wells but beyond that I have no idea.

Dennis - maybe you should contact an attorney who is very familiar with the oil/gas in Montague County - that would be Chuck Bartusch in Muenster - very experienced, very reasonable, and very good.

Shale Wells decline rapidly - a Well producing 400 bbl per day on day one is unlikely to be able to produce more than 100 bbl per day by month 18. Early decline rates often exceed 50%. After the curve flattens then a good well still declines at 20% annual rate or higher.

The downside is two fold as often water production increases as oil production decreases...