03 Aug Are You Down with DTC?
If you’ve never seen this acronym before? It means “Drilling, Testing, and Completion”. Most newcomers don’t fully understand that most success in prospecting hinges not in the Drilling and Testing, but the Completion.
Based on technology and historical field data, it’s hard these days to completely screw up drilling and find non-economical payzones when testing. Once drilling and testing is done, then the real work begins…
Completion of any well are dependent on many variables like material type (shale, limestone, sand, etc.), porosity, permeability, initial hydrocarbon showings, water content, possible water intrusion, and well depth. These variables have to be understood before any plan is put into place. That’s where things get started. This could take me all day to write on this, but this is a good place to start if you want to do a deeper dive. (https://deepdata.com/well-completion/)
So what’s does Completion have to do with program evaluation?
An AFE (authority for expenditure) can have Completion costs that vastly outweigh what Drilling and Testing is. Ideally, what we like to find are operators that have proven methodology to complete wells in a defined payzone in a given area (infield production). The next best thing is to find prospects where the completion methodologies are established (almost industry standard) for those payzones. If the completion methods are well defined, the chances of AFEs going beyond scope are significantly reduced, therefore keeping within program budget and avoiding cash calls.
Check out our opportunities ..our working interest programs meet either criteria above.