The oil patch has few secrets.
“My career experiences taught me that there are no secrets in the oil field, and if you find something that works, good luck keeping it secret for more than a few weeks before people finally figure it out,” Lance Robertson, former Endeavor Energy Resources CEO, said during SPE’s Permian Basin Energy Conference (PBEC) in Midland, Texas.
While much may be kept proprietary, talking and sharing is common. In October, operators came together at the PBEC to share how they are working to better produce the basin’s shale reservoirs.
Jye Collins, Texas asset manager, Midland upstream with Chevron, said during a plenary focused on the Midland Basin that there “really are no secrets” in the Permian.
“Everyone knows what’s going on pretty quickly in the Permian in the Midland Basin,” he said. “They say imitation is the best form of flattery, and I say Midland’s full of a lot of flattery because everybody’s looking over their shoulder to see what everyone’s doing.”
One of Chevron’s major focuses in the area is on keeping the Midland Basin going through the next evolution of west Texas energy.
The operator’s development strategy has evolved as the industry has learned what does and doesn’t work across the Permian. Those learnings, he noted, have led to more efficiencies.
“Efficiency has been a major part of the Midland Basin story, a major part of Chevron’s story, whether we’re talking about feet per day, dollar per foot unit, OPEX, efficiency has been a big component,” he said.
One efficiency, he said, has been moving from simulfrac operations to triple fracture, or trimulfrac, operations.
