Drilling & Completions | Drilling Activity

Altura Improves Drill Times at Mannville; Edits Completion Design

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Altura Energy reported an operational update in respect to its Leduc-Woodbend core area.

Altura completed its summer drilling program of eight 1.5-mile extended reach horizontal (ERH) wells in the Leduc-Woodbend Upper Mannville Rex oil pool on August 23rd. Five wells were brought on production throughout July and August, two wells were brought on production October 3rd and continue to clean up completion fluids and one well is scheduled for completion in November.

Improved Drill Times / Completion Design Changes

Compared to the three ERH wells drilled in the prior campaign (August 2017 to January 2018), the average spud to rig release time for the recent eight-well program dropped from 11 days to 8 days per well. As a result, drilling operations for the summer program were under budget by approximately $125,000 per well and were completed four weeks ahead of schedule.

The Corporation tested increased frac density on two of the eight wells in the summer program to evaluate further improvement in well productivity and reserves. On these pilot wells, Altura increased the frac density by reducing the frac spacing to 30 meters from 45 meters and reducing the per interval sand tonnage from 20 tonnes to 15 tonnes. This resulted in a 50 percent increase in the number of fracs and a 20 percent increase in the overall sand tonnage. Initial results of this pilot are encouraging and will continue to be assessed over the next several months.

Production

Altura’s corporate production averaged 502 Boe per day (70 percent oil and liquids) in June and increased to a corporate average of 1,650 Boe per day (87 percent oil and liquids) for September, based on field estimates.

Altura’s production was curtailed over the September 22-30 period to approximately 900 Boe per day due to a third-party gas plant maintenance turnaround. Corporate production volumes for the third quarter of 2018 are estimated at 1,050 Boe per day (82 percent oil and liquids), based on field estimates. For the October 1-7 period, corporate field estimates increased to 1,700 Boe per day as wells were brought back on-line from the curtailment.