American Oil and Gas Reporter - November 2017 - 70

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70 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

38.6 drilling days, with the Aikens 5M
well finishing in 34 days. The drilling
costs associated with the Aikens 5J and
5M wells are $5.5 million and $4.6 million,
respectively. During the course of drilling
its first three Westmoreland County dry
gas Utica Shale wells, CONSOL reduced
drilling capital 71 percent, or $11.45 million,
based on a comparison between the third
well (Aikens 5M) and the first (Gaut 41H).
"We are fracturing 12-13 stages a day
in the Marcellus," Passman details. "That
is 60-plus water trucks. It is a beautiful
ballet. We are drilling 7,000-foot laterals
in a day. We are drilling the Utica wells
in fewer than 25 days, and some issues
associated with using ceramics in the
fracs have smoothed out."
She lists several other strategies CONSOL has employed to shrink costs, one of
which involves reducing cycle times significantly by removing drill-outs of plugs.
Instead, Passman explains, the company
is using chemically dissolvable balls and
relying on time and temperature to dissolve
the balls, which has saved the company a
couple of days' worth of cycle time. She
adds that CONSOL also is using sophisticated compression optimization.
"Water costs have come down, too,"
Passman offers. "That is a big gamechanger. We also are using dual-fuel in
our rigs and most of our frac pumps, utilizing our own natural gas. That has made
a huge cost difference."
Even with the company's dry gas focus,
CONSOL reports, it brought a wet gas
Marcellus well on line in Allegheny
County, Pa., in the second quarter, as well
as five Marcellus Shale wells in Ritchie
County, W.V. Utilizing two frac crews,
the company completed 15 wells in the
second quarter: five Marcellus wells and
an Upper Devonian well in Greene County,
Pa., three West Virginia Marcellus Shale
wells in Ritchie County, and six dry Utica
wells in Monroe County, Oh.
Passman indicates CONSOL has focused on portfolio optimization, using data
analytics that she says have been a "huge
game changer." That includes automating
most of its wells and reducing downtime.
"We are tweaking every penny possible," she states. "For a 153-year-old company, it wasn't that hard. It was merely a
matter of educating ourselves and choosing
the right partners."
By the end of the year, CONSOL intends to separate its coal division and its
E&P division. Brian Aiello, director of
communication, says the coal division
will keep the CONSOL name, while the
gas production outfit will assume a new,
currently unannounced, name.
r

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American Oil and Gas Reporter - November 2017

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