Occidental is delivering strong well results from the Turner Sand play in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.
The Turner bench has been a key part of the company’s Powder River Basin drilling program since acquiring Anadarko Petroleum’s Wyoming assets in 2019.
Occidental Petroleum drills more horizontals in the shallower Niobrara Shale, the top target for most operators in the Powder today, according to Wyoming state data.
But prolific production from wells landed in the deeper Turner Sandstone helps offset the costs of drilling infill wells in the Niobrara formation, said Jason Sevin, general manager for Oxy’s Rockies region.
Oxy is taking lessons learned from drilling in the Permian Basin and Colorado’s Denver-Julesburg (D-J) Basin and applying them to the Powder, where exploration of the basin’s stacked oil potential is in early innings.
“One thing that we’ve taken from the Permian is this focus around best bench first,” Sevin told Hart Energy in an interview. “The Powder is in a really good spot where we have these discreet benches that exist that don’t necessarily talk to each other.”
The Niobrara and Mowry shales are fairly ubiquitous across the vast Powder River Basin, he said.
In between those targets are several semi-conventional sandstone reservoirs, like the Turner, Parkman, Teapot, Sussex and Shannon zones.
“They don’t exist everywhere and the quality of them varies quite a bit as you move across the play,” Sevin said.
Since taking over Anadarko’s position in 2019, Oxy has worked to test and delineate the best areas for multi-bench pad development in the Powder.
Today, Oxy focuses its efforts on around 150,000 net contiguous acres in the southern portion of the basin, which it sees as the highest quality rock in the entire basin.
Oxy sold non-core assets in the north of the basin last year to private E&P Anschutz Exploration, the most active developer in the Powder.
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Terrific Turner
Strong production and shallower declines help the Turner bench stand out among Oxy’s Powder River portfolio.
According to Wyoming state data, Oxy completed four wells landed in Turner last year. Two wells permitted to drill the Turner field landed in the overlying Sage Breaks bench, according to Wyoming state data.
Production from the Turner wells is matching or even surpassing the performance of some of the top wells in the Permian Basin, where leading operators average around 200,000 bbl of oil per well over 12 months, according to data from Novi Labs.
“The Turners are exceptional,” Sevin said. “You can pay out your initial investment of facilities and a lot of that infrastructure upfront off the Turner.”
The four Turner wells completed last year have produced nearly 1 MMbbl of oil and over 2 Bcf of gas across an average of 340 days online.
Queens Park Fed #3570-15-T2H IP’d at nearly 2,000 bbl/d of oil and 2.5 MMcf/d of gas. The 10,000-ft lateral was landed in Turner at a vertical depth of 11,285 ft.
Since coming online on June 6, 2024, through March 2025, Queens Park Fed #3570-15-T2H has produced 336,105 bbl—averaging 1,123 bbl/d steadily over 10 months. Gas volumes were 569 MMcf, or around 2 MMcf/d.
Nitro Fed #3569-19-T1H IP’d at 1,158 bbl/d and 2 MMcf/d after coming online on April 26, 2024. The well reached a vertical depth of 11,219 ft.
Through March, the Turner well (10,000-ft lateral) has produced 234,872 bbl, or around 700 bbl/d for nearly a year. Gas volumes were 586 MMcf, or around 1.7 MMcf/d.
Oil IPs for the four Turner wells averaged 1,252 bbl/d; IPs averaged 1,573 boe/d, including gas volumes.
Oxy’s Niobrara wells generally have stronger IP rates but have steeper declines than the steadier Turner wells.
“Our development strategy is then you come in behind [the Turners] and start refilling with Niobrara to keep the existing facility full as long as we can,” Sevin said.
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Future horizons
Oxy’s Powder asset also has upside exposure to the Parkman, Teapot and Mowry Shale zones.
The company’s Powder development plan has revolved around Niobrara and Turner wells for several years. But Oxy is planning some spacing tests in other benches toward the end of this year and into 2026.
Certain areas of Oxy’s Powder asset could support increased development in the Parkman and Teapot zones over time, Sevin said.
Oxy is also “pretty excited” about opportunities in the deeper Mowry Shale, he said. According to a recent U.S. Geological Survey assessment, the Mowry system still holds an estimated 473 MMbbl of oil and 27 Tcf of gas across parts of Wyoming, Colorado and Utah.
“[Powder is] a pretty sizable growth wedge for our U.S. onshore business and something we’re really counting on in the next few years,” Sevin said.
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