October Luncheon Meeting

LOCATION: Luncheon will be held at the Museum of the Southwest in the Blakemore Planetarium and online using the GoToMeeting Platform. 

**Please Note** The main parking lot at the Museum is currently under construction. Alternative parking is available along W. Missouri Avenue, north of the Museum.

TOPIC: Low Rate Horizontal Wells: Bane of Existence or Lateral to Opportunity? - Laura Freeman, VP of Business Development and Engineering, Vencer Energy

ABSTRACT: In the February 2021 issue of JPT (Society of Engineers’ Journal of Petroleum Technology) Ms. Freeman wrote a Guest Editorial titled “Hundreds of Thousands of Stripper Wells - Massive Liability or Golden Opportunity?”. In the article, she looked at the number of vertical stripper wells in the US by region, and found a staggering percentage of US Onshore vertical wells are low-rate producers. The economic viability of these wells has become a major topic of interest as has the discussion around who can successfully operate these wells and make a profit. Here, Laura will show similar work done for horizontal wells and will discuss the issues around the growing number of horizontals getting down around the 30 BOPD mark. With higher base fixed costs than vertical wells, there are a lot of questions about what to do with later life laterals. For smaller operators, there is potentially a lot of opportunity in being able to operate lean and make money where larger operators and financial-type groups cannot.

BIOGRAPHY: Laura Freeman serves as the Vice President of Business Development and Engineering at VencerEnergy. VencerEnergy is backed by Vitol, who is the world leader in crude oil trading and has recently acquired Hunt Oil Company’s Midland Basin assets. Prior to joining Vencer, Laura founded and ran Highpoint Global Capital, a technically focused advisory firm helping oil and gas operators find, evaluate, and close acquisitions, divest of properties, and secure bank and alternative financing. She specializes in buy and sell-side advisory, reserves valuation, reservoir and petroleum engineering, analytics, financials, strategic planning and technical due diligence. Laura graduated from the University of Wyoming with a MS in Petroleum Engineering and has an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management and a Physics BA from Reed College. She has also been featured as an expert on M&A, banking topics, and Reservoir Engineering for Oil and Gas Financial Journal, Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), and various industry events and online publications and teaches an ongoing SPE course on M&A and financial modeling.