"Spearfish Oil Formation could be Another Bakken Oil Boom for North Dakota" (EOG)

From Next Big Future:

Lynn Helms is director of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources indicates that oil companies are expecting to drill 50 wells this year to figure out the edges of the primary part of the spearfish play, and 50 to 100 next year, and then they really expect to go into full development mode. They could drill anywhere between two and seven thousand wells up there. In Caanda, the formation is called the Waskada. It appears to be another thin oil structure over a large area and is being unlocked the horizontal multi-fracturing drilling. It will be interesting to see if this oil formation also becomes significant for Canada.

The Spearfish oil is at a shallower depth than the Bakken oil, so it should be cheaper to drill the Spearfish.

They plan on drilling as many as 30 wells in each square mile for this Spearfish play so it's going to be very intense from year three through year ten it is going to be a huge amount of drilling rigs and trucks and people migrating in to the Souris area in central Bottineau County

EOG drilling Spearfish wells in four (4) days. EOG released statement saying the Spearfish is a significant discovery. Back in April, 2010 it was believed to be relatively small -- estimated at 20 million barrels -- it has a very high rate of return. They can drill these wells in less than five days for a cost of about $1 million. The Waskada field north of the border is estimated to be 25 million barrels. EOG says they can get a return on the order of 70 - 100%....MORE