Let's Look How Exxon is Doing in the Midland Basin
Here is a chart that is about 9 months old now and was used in a discussion about parent/child degradation in the Midland Basin and its effect on falling well productivity. 70% or so of these parent wells now operated by Exxon used to be Pioneer wells.
Parent wells are thought to be the better wells in a community because they were, generally speaking, drilled on reasonable spacing, their initial production managed more prudently (GOR, for instance), etc. Child wells in proximity to parent wells tend to be crowded around parents that were good and as they are newer focused on high IP's and optimum cash flow. They tend to be wells walked on a pad crafted to make money. They generally are not as good as parents, particularly now days, because of degradation and pressure depletion. Many studies are underway suggesting child wells underperform parents by as much as 30%, IP360s and EURs.
In the oil cumulative v. time chart upper right PXD's parent wells had predictable UR's at around 435 K BO per well in the three major Midland benches, Wolfcamp A and B and Lower Spraberry. As you can see in that same chart, Exxon's "parent" wells had very similar UR's and implied EUR's as Pioneers', even these more recent Exxon wells were longer laterals. The data is not normalized for lateral length.
We're not too keen on 30-year EUR estimates in tight oil plays, by the way; by year 14-15 these wells are 93% home on EURs and WOR makes them approaching economic limits at $65 WTI.
Next, we'll show you that 2025 Exxon went nuts with longer laterals in the Midland Basin, most of which would still be classified as children, just born with longer legs. Were those wells better? In other words, is Exxon drilling better wells in the same Midland cores, as it promised?
This is a data set of all three-mile laterals drilled in the Midland Basin from 2020 to mid 2025; elsewhere from other Novi charts I can determine that over 65% of these 3-mile wells were drilled by either Pioneer or Exxon. There may or may not (given drilling risks) be some economy of scale to consider but on a production basis it is almost possible to say three-mile laterals don't have the URs, or implied EURs, that shorter laterals have. There is only reason for this...
The longer is better fad started just a few years ago in crowded, over drilled cores. Three milers are child wells, and they are going to likely make less in pressure depleted areas surrounded by parent wells, whether they are 3 miles long or 30 miles long. If we listened to internet experts on LinkedIn, Twitter and Substack we were told to believe longer laterals were going to re-revolutionize the revolution and create greater EURs. Nah. Longer laterals did not increase recovery of calculated oil in place within the SRV/lateral either...just the opposite, I suspect.
I'll show you Midland Basin 4 milers, most of which were drilled by Exxon, tomorrow