This is very cool GIF of Bone Springs development in the Delaware Basin from 2011 t0 2Q2020. In the five years since 2020 there has been an additional 7,899 Bone Springs wells drilled in the Basin thru 1Q2025 bringing the total to a little south of 13,000 well today. It is, in my opinion, over the entire correlative interval, including the 1st, 2nd. 3rd BS, an Avalon and Bone Springs "sand" interval, the most prolific formation in the Delaware Basin. The Permian is what it is today because of New Mexico, because of Lea and Eddy Counties in New Mexico, and because of the Bone Springs. There are numerous wells in one or more of these Bone Springs benches that are approaching over 1.5-2.0 MM BO of cummprod. to date, headed for 3 MM.

It's a different beast than Wolfcamp mudstone (shale), the Bone Spings; it was deposited in a time of rising and falling sea water, consists of lenticular sections of clean sandstone having 25 % by volume porosity, rabbled carbonates, sandy carbonates and shaley carbonates that crumble with stressed via a frac. The organic matter laid down during the depositional time frame is full of hydrocarbons and makes the Bone Springs both reservoir-like, but with self-generating resource beds immediately above and below porous layers of the formation itself. In the East, the deepest part of the Delaware Basin, the Bone Springs is actually over pressured adding to its productivity (EOG in Lea County). To the west when the old sea was transgressive (receding back and forth, deposition led to areas of turbulent, creek-like things (fans) that are unusually porous and very rich in organic material. If you encounter some of the turbidite fans you can make a awesome wells (Franklin Mountain).

While the rest of Permian Basin resource beds struggle to produce 8% of calculated oil in place along a HZ lateral (stimulated reservoir volume, or SRV), many of the Bone Springs benches, like 1 and 2, have recovery rates of 38-34%.

So, if you have no more room to drill long laterals, and only one section of land isolated between thousands of long laterals, you want to drill Bone Springs stuff under those sections because that is the good, juicy stuff. How do you do that? With a U-turn well. A surface location generally off the section drills a 5,000 foot lateral up one side of the section, turns a wide curve then drills another 5,000 foot lateral down the other side of the section.

There is a good reason that most of the OK (none are good enough @ $63 WTI/ negative WaHa to pay back costs) U-turn wells drilled in the Permian Basin are in northern Reeves, Loving and Eddy County, New Mexico.

It's because of the Bone Springs. The ones drilled over the in the Midland Basin core, suck.

Tight oil cheerleaders are doing handstands and bowling ball holds over U-turns, like Doomberg and its followers, above, but these wells are really not very cost effective to drill and because much of the long sweeping turn (many torque and drag problems) before the 2nd leg (much of which cannot even be perforated or frac'ed) they are a bitch to produce, particularly once on artificial lift. Remember, the perforated stages at the toe of U-turn well have to have greater pressure drop than those at the heel or they are not going to produce at the same rates. Thats just one problem. The next three problems, in order of severity, are a.) water, b.) water and c.) more water.

At <$63 a $10MM U-turn well still has to make 600K BO to reach payout. They DO solve a "problem," however, and that problem has to do with running out of contiguous acreage that will allow one to drill a liner 10,12, 13K foot lateral from one surface location. If there were a lot of drillable locations like that left in the Permian, why in God's name would you want to drill one that looks like a horseshoe?

The risk factors in drilling these wells more than doubles.