Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Ride the Tiger with CD -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: archeee who wrote (201665)	7/28/2011 12:17:36 PM
From: czechmate	Respond to of 313046

Further to my last post on Rosetta results, this may give us some indication on how close to public disclosure we are. Estimates of the total resource in place vary from 10 to 15 million barrels of oil equivalent per square mile. Rosetta Resources Inc., Newfield Exploration Co. and AnschutzExploration Co. dominated early leasing, but more than a dozen smallerU.S. independents and Canadian junior oils have taken neighboringpositions. “Most of the activity is on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, whichmakes it a little bit difficult” to get information, said Tom Richmond,division administrator for the Montana Board of Oil and Gas inBillings. Almost all drilling so far has been vertical, light, and very tightin terms of disclosure, Richmond noted. He said companies have sixmonths from completion before they must begin releasing well results. Both Newfield and Anschutz have drilled horizontal wells on theMontana side of the Southern Alberta Basin, Richmond said. He describedthe Anschutz well as something of an offset to a much earlier discovery. “There’s a Greenhorn Shale well that’s been producing just outsideof Glacier National Park for 35 years,” he said.“It’s our only Greenhornwell.” Testing ContinuesLike its eastern counterpart, the Alberta Basin Bakken hasattractive shale oil features. It also offers multiple prospectivezones, including the Nisku, Bakken-Three Forks and Lodgepole formations,as well as other secondary targets. Good pipeline transportation exists in the area, thanks in part tothe presence of the once prolific Cut Bank oil and gas field in additionto Canadian production. Operators plan to evaluate the western Bakken play based on theirvertical test or pilot programs. No meaningful production picture willemerge until more wells have been horizontally drilled and fractured. Rosetta Resources has a 300,000-acre lease position in northwestMontana, where it had two rigs under contract and was completing an11-well vertical drilling program. At the beginning of April, the company had drilled eight verticaldelineation wells with operations under way on its ninth and tenthvertical wells. An additional vertical well was planned for the secondquarter of 2011. Based on encouraging results, Rosetta said it also will spud the first of three planned horizontal wells in the second quarter.