My, how you’ve grown! An investigation of wellbore lengths.

In the face of unprecedented 5 mile laterals proposed by Extraction for the Draco Pad, it’s an appropriate time to analyze the maximum measured depths as reported to the ECMC for wells in Colorado to answer the question, “Have 5 mile laterals ever been drilled in Colorado before?” Let’s not bury the lead; according to the data reported to the ECMC, the answer is a resounding NO!

The longest laterals we’ve ever seen in Colorado are 4 miles long; the vast majority are less than 3 miles. The 5 mile laterals proposed at Draco are 25% longer than the longest laterals ever drilled in Colorado, and the proposed wellbores are 70% longer than any wells completed before 2024.

Christiaan van Woudenberg, Erie Protectors

Let’s start with a few definitions:

• Wellbore: the actual hole that forms the well
• Lateral: the horizontal portion of a wellbore
• Measured Depth: the length of the wellbore, as if determined by a measuring stick.

We’ve chosen our words carefully here. Given the Draco Pad is 5 miles away from the planned directional bottom hole locations in Boulder County, we also expect 5 mile laterals for the project. But, the operator will also have to drill down to depth at over 7,000 ft, so they’ll actually attempt to drill wells with a measured depth of 6 miles or more. Note also that the only the last 3.5 miles of the wellbore will be perforated to extract minerals from the Drilling & Spacing Unit (DSU).

The data readily available for this analysis comes to us from the ECMC well spot data, which reports the maximum measured depth for each well. Setting aside various data issues (see below), we have the following violin plot of the maximum measured depth data for 2016 through 2023:

Comparing this data to the period of 2008 through 2015 shows a dramatic change from previous years:

What do 4 ½ mile wellbores look like?

In their application materials to the ECMC, Extraction Oil & Gas claims “the proposed Draco Pad is protective of public health, safety, welfare, the environment, and wildlife resources.” Yet, when drilling 4+ mile wellbores in Broomfield, residents submitted 260 complaints about noise, odor, and air quality issues during the drilling and completions phases, as did Thornton residents about the Ivey LC Pad (95 complaints).

Breaking the 5 Mile Barrier

In its 2024 Q2 Results Report, Civitas reported wells with over 4 mile laterals in production at the Blue and Sky Ranch pads in Adams and Arapahoe Counties, respectively. The map shown above is from data of the planned directional wellbore data provided to the ECMC, but has not yet been made a part of the main well GIS data set. We’ll be watching for it!

We do, however, have FracFocus data for most of these wells (more detailed analysis here). On average, each well used 43.1 million gallons of water to complete the hydraulic fracturing treatment.

Notes and Observations

• Until 2011, the majority of wellbores were consistently drilled to a maximum measured depth of less than 1.5 miles.
• With the technology advances through the 2010s, we see a steady increase in median and maximum wellbore lengths until 2019, when drilling in Colorado hit its peak.
• Starting in 2017, we see the first wellbores with a maximum measured depth over 4 miles, at sites like Extraction’s
• Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, we see a substantial change in maximum measured depths
• The large number of shallow wells spud in 2020 and 2022 are most likely due to economic impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic. An interesting topic for future analysis!

Data Limitations

Here are some of the data issues we’re aware of and have attempted to incorporate into this analysis:

• As shown in the bar chart above, maximum measured depth data is lagging for wells spud after 2020. We only have a small sample set for the wells drilled in that period, but have not made any extrapolations of that data.
• Scant data exists for 2024, so it has been excluded from this analysis; only 12 of 408 wells spud since January 1, 2024 have maximum measured depth data.