Newfield Exploration Company - Rocky Mountains
Percent of 2009 Total Company Reserves: 26%
Percent of 2010e Total Company Production: 18%
Percent of 2010 Capital Budget: 20%
Location: Headquarters in Denver, Colorado, with operations in Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana.
Focus: Long lived, unconventional oil play with deep gas potential at Monument Butte, Utah. Oil and natural gas developments primarily in North Dakota and Montana.
Links:
Map of Uinta Basin / Monument Butte
Map of Williston Basin
Southern Alberta Basin
Our Rocky Mountain region is primarily focused on oil provinces. At the end of 2009, we owned an interest in approximately 1.4 million gross acres (1.0 million net acres) and more than 2,200 gross producing wells in the Rocky Mountains. Our assets are more than 70% oil and have long-lived production. Our efforts today are focused primarily on oil plays in the Uinta, Williston and Southern Alberta Basins.
Monument Butte: Our largest asset in the Rocky Mountains is the Monument Butte oil field, located in the Uinta Basin of Utah. Our working interest in the field averages about 85% and we operate the field, which is substantially held-by-production. The field accounted for approximately 20% of our year-end 2009 proved reserves. We have approximately 1,300 productive oil wells in Monument Butte. Our acreage in this region is approximately 180,000 net acres, including 63,000 net acres that we have added over the last two years through several transactions with Ute Energy LLC. These lands adjoin Monument Butte at the field’s northern edge. Since 2008, we have drilled more than 130 wells on Ute acreage. Our gross production from the Monument Butte field area has grown from 7,500 BOPD in 2004 to a mid May 2010 rate of more than 20,000 BOPD gross. We have thousands of remaining locations in the Monument Butte field area.
Williston Basin/Southern Alberta Basin: We have approximately 160,000 net development acres in the Williston Basin, including approximately 54,000 net acres in the Elm Coulee field. As of mid-May, we have drilled 20 successful wells with production from the Bakken and Sanish/Three Forks formations. Our production in May 2010 is approximately 4,000 BOEPD net. We plan to run three operated rigs in 2010 and expect production in the Williston Basin to grow more than 40% during the year. We have an inventory of approximately 80 development locations primarily along the Nesson Anticline. In late 2009, we reached an agreement with the Blackfeet Nation covering approximately 156,000 net acres in the Southern Alberta Basin of northern Montana. Including this recent transaction, we now have approximately 224,000 net acres in the Southern Alberta Basin. Our 2010 plans include drilling up to eight wells in the Southern Alberta Basin. Our primary targets are the Lodgepole, Bakken and the Sanish/Three Forks.
Green River Basin: We own interests in 4,000 net acres in the Pinedale field, located in Sublette County, Wyoming. We also have an interest in the Jonah field, located in Sublette County, Wyoming, where we have identified about 35 development locations on 10- and 5-acre well spacing. We have halted our activities here with lower gas prices in 2009-10.