SALT LAKE CITY—Utah regulators have agreed to allow a higher density of wells for some expanding areas of the Uintah Basin oil patch.
The decision by the Utah Board of Oil, Gas and Mining came Wednesday at the request of Bill Barrett Corp.
To maximize production, the Denver-based company plans to drill as many as four wells on some of its 640-acre sections of leased land, up from a limit of two wells for virgin lands.
Bill Barrett says each well costs nearly $4 million to drill. It needs to find at least 75,000 barrels of oil to make a well profitable. Its most productive well in the region has yielded 426,000 barrels.
The Uintah Basin south of Vernal is made up of federal, state and some tribal lands. Commercial oil production took hold there in the 1970s.
