Nissa Darbonne, executive editor-at-large, Hart Energy: Hi, thank you for joining us. I'm Nissa Darbonne, executive editor-at-large for Hart Energy. We're visiting at SUPER DUG 2025 with Fernando Araujo. Fernando is CEO of Berry Corp. Berry operates in California, but it also operates in Utah in the Uinta oil basin on the western side of the basin that's oily and is an extremely hotspot now. Fernando, thank you for joining us.

Fernando Araujo, CEO, Berry Corp.: Yeah, thank you for having me. It's really good talking to you.

ND: I wanted to ask you more about the Uinta. You just presented and you have just as many formations and benches there as SM has, Four Point has. Tell us about the depth of deposition and what are you targeting first with horizontals?

FA: Very good, very good question. To begin with, we're really excited about the resource potential that we have in the Uinta Basin. It's a wonderful, beautiful basin. Stacked pays. We have a hydrocarbon column in our acreage of about 2,000 feet, which is very significant, which is as large as some of the other important plays in the U.S.

Now in terms of what we're focusing on initially, we're focusing on developing with horizontal wells and targeting the Uteland Butte reservoir, which is one of four or five different reservoirs being targeted in the area.

Currently we've got six non-operated wells on production in the Uteland Butte with excellent production results, exceeding expectations in terms of production. And at the same time, based on those results, we started developing our own pad and we finished the drilling of the first pad, a four-well pad in April, again targeting the Uteland Butte reservoir.

We'll be fracking that pad coming in June, and then we'll be putting the pad on production late July, early August.

Now, in terms of resource potential, like I said, this is only one of the reservoirs that we have, but we've got the Lower Cube, which includes the Wasatch, includes the Castle Peak as potential targets as well, and then we've got the Upper Cube with a couple of the reservoirs as potential targets.

So again, significant resource potential in the Uinta Basin for us.

ND: It's very exciting. Explain to everyone why the Uinta Basin just now in the past few years is even being drilled horizontally. What took so long?

FA: To begin with. As Berry, we've been in the Uinta Basin since 2003. We currently have about 1,200 vertical wells, and we've had historically just vertical well development.

But in the last few years there's been significant activity in the basin drilling horizontal wells, plus M&A activity.

But specific to horizontal wells, which started in the northern end of the basin, and it actually came down to the southern end of the basin, the shallow basin. That's where we are. And with all our neighbors, we’re drilling really good wells.

So we started to de-risk our reservoir, our acreage base, initially as a first phase with a couple of farm-ins on the northern end of the basin with again, really good, excellent results. And the next step was to do it ourselves. And that's what we're doing now -- we're drilling our own wells.

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ND: The increased takeaway capacity with the addition of rail takeaway, insulated railcar takeaway just south of the basin center, has that contributed to why horizontal is worth it? Because horizontal is obviously going to produce a lot more than a vertical, but you're maxed out sending 100,000 bbl/d to Salt Lake City.

FA: And that's a very good question. Short term for us, initially what we do is we produce our oil to our refineries in Salt Lake City and some of our oil goes to the Gulf of Mexico via rail capacity as well. Now that capacity is close to its limits, but for the short term, we've got enough capacity for our operations this year and next year.

But longer term, there has to be an increase in the capacity and outtake from the Uinta Basin. And there are several projects in the works. To begin with, there's two active terminals now, and they're both getting upgraded, so there's going to be additional capacity there.

Plus there's two or three additional new projects in the basin to add available capacity as well. And we're in conversations with all those players to ensure that we have capacity going forward.

ND: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Fernando. Appreciate it.

FA: Thank you. Thank you so much.

ND: And thank you for joining us. Stay tuned here for more actionable intelligence.

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