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Operator
Good morning. My name is Frank and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everybody to the third-quarter 2015 earnings release operations update for Oasis Petroleum.
(Operator Instructions)
I would now like to turn the call over to Michael Lou, Oasis Petroleum CFO, to begin the conference. Thank you. Mr Lou, you may begin your conference, sir.
- CFO
Thank you, Frank. Good morning, everyone. This is Michael Lou.
Today we are reporting our third quarter 2015 financial and operational results. We're delighted to have you on our call. I'm joined today by Tommy Nusz and Taylor Reid, as well as other members of the team.
Please be advised that our remarks including the answers to your questions include statements that we believe to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statement are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from those currently disclosed in our earnings release and conference call.
Those risks include among others matters that we have described in our earnings release, as well as in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual report on form 10-K and our quarterly reports on form 10-Q. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. During this conference call we will also make references to adjusted EBITDA, which is a non-GAAP financial measure.
Reconciliations of adjusted EBITDA to the applicable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and/or on our website. We will also reference our November investor presentation, which you can find on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Tommy.
- Chairman & CEO
Good morning and thanks for joining our call. Given the current environment that we're living in I can't say enough about what the Oasis Team has accomplished in a trying year, with both oil and gas trading at depressed levels. The Team took the right steps to position us for 2015 and has set us up for successful 2016 even if we don't see a more bullish commodity backdrop.
We're proud to report that we have exceeded expectations on all fronts this quarter. We delivered a beat on production, differentials, LOE, G&A, EBITDA, well cost, and cash flow. That is with WTI averaging $46.43 for the quarter. Also, earlier this year we felt like we were positioned to be free cash flow positive in 2016 with WTI at $60 per barrel, and now we are setting up to be free cash flow positive at $50 a barrel WTI.
Both scenarios exclude infrastructure capital for OMS, which Michael will discus later. Our drilling and completion program in 2015 and 2016 continues to be basically the same as our original plans, but with a few changes. We originally set a plan in 2015 to complete about 60% of our wells with either slick water or high-intensity stimulation, and that has now progressed to north of 70% in the second half of the year.
Results from our high intensity completions continue to exceed our expectations and have led us to move more of the program in 2016, in fact greater than 80% high intensity. On the drilling side we intended to run five rigs throughout 2015 to complete our program, but our drilling team has knocked down the drilling days such that we were able to ramp down to three rigs mid-year and still execute on our original plan.
Those rigs have started to transition to Wild Basin now, which is in the eastern part of our Indian Hills project area, and is the deepest part of the Williston Basin. This is where OMS is currently putting in our gathering and processing infrastructure. The infrastructure is expected to be fully operational in the fall of 2016, which coincides with when we plan to bring on production from the wells in that area.
On slide 13 of our posted presentation you can see the progress we're making on our $80 million a day gas processing plant and we'll start construction of gathering lines for oil, gas, and produced water as we get into 2016. We expect that this project will be highly accretive toward our execution plan in Wild Basin.
At this point our fourth quarter plan has us completing a few less net wells compared to the 15.4 operated wells we completed the third quarter, and we're hedging against some weather impacts -- winter weather impacts. So we've essentially maintained our flattish production volume guidance. Giving continued winter operation in the first quarter of 2016, we expect similar production compared to the fourth quarter of 2015, but volume should ramp up throughout the year and be a bit backend-loaded with the completion of the Wild Basin plan.
So volumes exiting 2016 are expected to top volumes exiting 2015, as the plan is currently laid, out with the year being relatively flat to a bit up, if everything goes as planned. With similar production levels year-over-year coupled with both lower operating costs and low well costs we are well-positioned in 2016 for $50 oil.
Project level economics in the core range from 25% to 40% at $50 WTI. In light of those economics and the downside protection of [portabuyer] hedge program we continue to layer in swaps during the third quarter of 2015 fighting protection in 2016 for about half of our production and we expect to lay in additional positions as the market allows.
With that I'll turn the call over to Taylor for more operations detail.
- President & COO
Thanks, Tommy.
The Williston Basin continues to be the premier oil basin in North America, and Oasis continues to be a leading operator in the basin. With around 500,000 net acres across the play, in production north of 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, Oasis is well-positioned.
We believe you must have both great assets and great people to succeed in this environment. And our performance in 2015 is further evidence that we have both. Our Team further reduced our well costs this quarter and as a result slick water completions in the core now cost $7.4 million, which is less than 10% over our base well costs to complete our wells.
In Indian Hills we are now drilling more than 30% faster than our 2014 average. Our current wells are being drilled under legacy contracts, so we will have a chance to further reduce drilling costs at the end the year when these contracts roll off.
Remember, we've only paid $3.9 million in rig termination fees because we laddered our drilling contracts to provide the flexibility to drop rigs in a down cycle. We were also able to drop third party frac crews at the beginning of the year without penalties, and since that time OWS has handled 100% of our completions.
Because we strategically managed the program and did not spend the capital to complete all of the wells we drilled in the first quarter, we have a backlog of wells waiting on completion that gives us flexibility depending on which direction oil heads. As mentioned in our press release, we expect to complete around 80 gross operated wells this year with 60% being stimulated with high intensity fracs.
Results from both slick water and high volume proppant continue to significantly outperform our base wells which is why we are shifting our program to over 80% high intensity fracs in 2016. We completed 100% of our wells in the quarter -- in the third quarter and the remainder of the wells scheduled to be completed this year are in the heart of the play.
Last quarter we mentioned that we plan to test all sand slick water completions in the quarter. We recently completed three tests in Indian Hills. These wells are in early flow back, but if their results are the same that we have seen in Montana where production with and without ceramic are very similar, then we will apply this technique more broadly in the quarter. The benefit would be an additional savings of $500,000 per well.
These savings are not baked into our plan yet, nor in our $7.4 million well costs that I spoke to earlier. While we have driven down well costs -- while we have driven well costs down by 30% from the end of 2014, we remain confident we will see further well cost reductions through both improvements and operational efficiency and service cost reductions.
Our operational improvement accounts for just under half of our cost reduction, while the remainder has been derived from third-party services and materials. Accordingly, we anticipate that much of the cost improvement is more structural in nature and should remain when prices rebound.
We do not yet have a Board approved budget for 2016, but due to lower well costs we currently expect to spend less than $350 million in drilling and completion capital next year, which should result in flat to slightly going production for the year. Additionally, it is especially encouraging to note that these cost reductions and performance enhancements extend to our acres outside the core. While we currently have no plans to drill outside the core, we believe we have a considerable amount of additional economic inventory should prices tick up a little.
Last quarter we talked about our Montana position, specifically as it related to a slick water completion test with 100% sand, where we can deliver a double-digit return at $60 WTI. With the lower well costs we are experiencing, we also see double-digit returns for the extended core at around $55 WTI and at Cottonwood around $60 WTI.
I will close out my remarks with the discussion on LOE, which we have driven down to $7.67 per Boe, a reduction of $0.59 over the second quarter. This improvement was driven by two things: first, an increase in produced water volumes being transported on OMS pipelines. We exited the third quarter with 75% of our produced water on our gathering system up from 40% at year-end 2014.
It was also driven down by lower workover costs, due to improved operational efficiency and runtimes on our wells. LOE per Boe may increase slightly as we head into the winter months. However, as the team is setting targets for 2016, I expect that we will be able to find a way to keep the momentum that we've established during 2015.
All told it was a tremendous quarter for Oasis. We've done a great job of keeping our focus on improving capital efficiency through solid operational execution. We have recognized several opportunities to improve our results through innovation, and we will maintain a flexible approach to assure that we capture all opportunities for value creation.
In closing, I want to recognize the diligent work and innovative approach of our Team in this tough environment. They have delivered great performance even with low commodity prices and have set us up for the future.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Michael.
- CFO
Thanks, Taylor.
Oasis delivered another incredible quarter as our EMP, midstream, and well services businesses all posted impressive results. As a Company we were again able to operate the Business cash flow positive this quarter with adjusted EBITDA of $189 million.
Our midstream business delivered $20.5 million of adjusted EBITDA primarily due to gathering a higher percentage of Oasis's produced water and another quarter of high freshwater sales. We now anticipate that OMS will generate over $60 million of adjusted EBITDA in 2015, which significantly exceeds our original projections of approximately $40 million coming into the year. The midstream business continues to improve as we continue to utilize our large scale system towards its full potential.
As previously discussed, we are exploring avenues to monetize a portion of OMS and we seek to bring in external capital to fund our 2016 infrastructure program of approximately $150 million. Most of this capital will be focused on the Wild Basin infrastructure project Tommy described earlier. We have significant interest in the midstream assets and given the outperformance of the Business this year coupled with the progress in the Wild Basin assets we believe we're in a significantly stronger position to maximize the value of this rapidly growing Business while maintaining control.
We exited the quarter with liquidity of $1.35 billion and in the first week of October we announced that our lenders completed their regular semiannual redetermination of our borrowing base, resulting in an unchanged commitment level of $1.525 billion.
CapEx came in lighter than expected during the third quarter. As well costs came down rapidly throughout the year, actuals came in below engineering estimates and of the true up of about $50 million led to our lower CapEx during the third quarter. Importantly, this does not change our year-to-date capital expenditures of $520 million and we'll still see full year 2015 CapEx come in at or under our current $670 million capital plan.
With CapEx down 57% in 2015 compared to 2014, volumes are still projected to grow by approximately 10% year-over-year. Another great trend this year has been our oil differentials, which have fallen from about $8 per barrel in the first quarter of 2015 to below $5 in the third quarter. We are now expecting our differential to remain between $4 and $5 for the fourth quarter of 2015 and we are currently estimating a $5 differential for our 2016 plan.
Finally, our team exceeded production and we raised full-year guidance again this quarter while lowering well costs, LOE, G&A, and differentials. Our all in operating costs are now down 35% from $33.61 per Boe in 2014 compared to $21.78 in the third quarter of 2015. With all of the hard work of our employees, we have quickly repositioned Oasis to be able to continue to grow year-over-year and make solid returns at a much lower oil price in 2015, 2016, and beyond while continuing to spend within cash flow and preserve our strong liquidity position.
I'll now turn the call back to Frank to open the line up for questions.
Operator
(Operator Instructions)
Neal Dingmann, SunTrust.
- Analyst
Good morning. Just your thoughts -- you mentioned about going to the Wild Basin area -- just tell me your thoughts about looking at Alger and some of these other areas if you would consider going to any of those areas in 2016?
- Chairman & CEO
Yes, Neal, right now we're transitioning to where all three rigs will be in Wild Basin in preparation for the startup of the plan in the second half of the year. The latter part of the year we may have a few in some of the other areas from a drilling standpoint. But keep in mind that with the drilled uncompleted inventory that we have, we've got a number of wells outside of Wild Basin primarily in Indian Hills that we'll be completing as we go through the first half of 2016. But a lot of this drilling is focused in Wild Basin just so that we can adequately start up the plant in the second half.
- Analyst
Makes sense. And then just one last one.
Obviously liquidity, and Michael mentioned about not having, obviously, much of an outspend issue, if any. There's no issues there but your thoughts about if you would look into monetizing the midstream services anytime soon?
- Chairman & CEO
You mean the OWS business, the frac services business?
- Analyst
Sorry -- the OWS.
- Chairman & CEO
We've done a really good job with OWS. It's been a great business for us. Monetizing that into this market would be challenging.
I don't think that we would receive the value in the external market for that that we received by owning it ourselves and maintaining the efficiency and flexibility in that business, our ability to control costs all the way through the supply chain. So, I think it's much more available to us at this point than it is externally.
- Analyst
I would agree at this point. Thanks, Tommy.
- Chairman & CEO
You bet.
Operator
Ryan Oatman, Cowen.
- Analyst
Good morning. In the August presentation, slide 11 suggested that the current IRRs were similar with enhanced completions at $55 NYMEX as they were all the way back in May 2015 with $70 NYMEX.
Your slick oil well costs have come down 5% quarter-over-quarter. The differentials are narrowing. I was wondering if you could update that comparison for us and how the current returns compare to those you were seeing in May of last year?
- CFO
We don't have that in front of us, Ryan. I can get together with you afterwards to go into a little bit more detail.
But the IRRs continue to improve from a number of standpoints. One, as we see continued outperformance on those wells; we're getting better IRRs.
Well costs have come down dramatically. LOEs come in dramatically, differentials have come in dramatically. All of the different pieces have contributed to it.
I don't have exactly the breakout of what contributed what there. But, overall everything is contributing to those IRRs improving even at lower pricing.
- Chairman & CEO
Yet, keep in mind at the end of last year well costs for these high-intensity completions were running somewhere around $10.5 million. That now is $7.4 million. So, a big move in initial cost, along with all the other components coming down as well.
- Analyst
That's helpful. Then you guys had mentioned that the slick water well costs, they use ceramic, the cost for those have come down.
Is it the ceramic cost itself that's decreasing? And then if that's the case how would that change the math in terms of potential savings from shifting from say 4 million pounds of ceramic to 9 million pounds of sand?
- CFO
It's pretty even across the well, it's not just materials so there's a combination of things that have driven the cost down. As we're showing -- of all the cost saving so far about have of that have been service reductions. And then the other half has really been around efficiency.
And so we've gotten much more efficient in terms of cycle times, eliminated down time, and really improved the well cost from that standpoint. And like I said the other half being service and material side of the business.
- Analyst
That's very good. And then one final one for me -- I noticed in the back of the presentation the illustrative high intensity EURs -- it looked like it was about 850 MBoe last quarter it looks like there's now two curves there, one at 875 MBoe, another at 975 MBoe. I just wanted to see what drove that change and what your latest thoughts are for EURs? Thanks.
- Chairman & CEO
It's just a reflection of what we are seeing in the core of the range of performance. And if you look back on page 10 you can see for Alger and for Indian Hills that the wells are performing at those higher ranges. So we just added that to reflect the performance that we've actually seen in the wells.
Operator
Tim Rezvan, Sterne Agee.
- Analyst
I was hoping you could clarify some of the comments you made earlier on 2016 to make sure we understand your thought process. Is it true -- base case level of activity you talked about $350 million spending to keep reduction flat-ish and be roughly free cash flow neutral.
Is that what you're thinking? On top of that, is backend skewed to production growth? Is that a fair assessment of what you've described?
- CFO
Yes, Tim, that's pretty much what we're talking about -- $350 million of D&C capital we'd spend within cash flow at a $50 oil price. That would keep production flat to growing slightly.
Then what Tommy mentioned was that because of weather, we've given guidance on the fourth quarter that volumes may come down just a touch and you might see that at the beginning of next year. But then you'll have a ramp towards the back half of the year also with that Wild Basin asset and infrastructure project coming online. As opposed to the flattish production you've seen this year it may be a little more skewed next year.
- Analyst
Okay. You talked about the OMS monetization, it sounds like you are moving down that path. If you don't get something done, does that imply a $150 million gross spend for 2016?
- CFO
Yes, if we did nothing next year on that OMS asset that would mean add a $50 million -- $150 million of outspend. Obviously we have the ability to do that under liquidity but that is not our preferred route.
- Analyst
I just wanted to clarify that, thank you.
Operator
[Vanderan Boch], Wunderlich.
- Analyst
A few questions on the production guidance. I was wondering how much of the winter effects baked into the fourth quarter numbers? I'm wondering if the winter is a little milder than expected should we assume that you guys will be above that range?
And just generally in terms of production guidance, I know the high intensity wells have been really great and you guys have been coming in above guidance pretty consistently. Do you feel like these wells can still surprise you from here? Or do you think that the production guidance is going to be a little bit more within range going forward?
- President & COO
First, on the production guidance going into the fourth quarter, there's two things -- one, we do have a few less wells that we're going to complete in the fourth quarter relative to third quarter. But we're also factoring in normal winter conditions that we see and you specially get that easily, December timeframe, and it can be wildly variable. So if you have a really warm winter we could do a little better but really cold you could drive the other way as well.
With respect to the high intensity completions, what we model is 30% uplift on average. Clearly we're seeing a better performance than that in some of the areas. So we're optimistic that we'll continue to see that outperformance in the areas where we're really going to be doing the work in the core which is Indian Hills and especially Wild Basin next year.
- Chairman & CEO
One of the things we figured out is we're not very good at predicting the weather. So, it's kind of planning for -- if we have more precipitation or if it's warmer than normal.
It's actually better when it's colder. If we are bouncing around where it's warmer and it doesn't stay frozen, then with precipitation that could be problematic for us. But as always we kind of hedge a little bit against the weather because we just don't know.
- Analyst
Thanks, guys.
Operator
Brad Carpenter, Cantor Fitzgerald.
- Analyst
Congrats on the nice quarter. I had a few questions on OMS -- I was looking at your guidance of over $60 million EBITDA for the full year. And that to me suggested a sequential decline in 4Q. I'm just curious what are the drivers behind that implied lower 4Q number versus 3Q?
- CFO
I'm sorry, Brad, fourth quarter what was lower?
- Analyst
The OMS guidance of over $60 million on EBITDA for the full year. Just looking at the first nine months, I'm getting to a lower sequential 4Q number. So I was hoping you could talk about the moving parts behind that.
- CFO
Sure. One of the things that I mentioned was that the third quarter, and really the second quarter, was a couple of things. One, we were getting more of our wells connected to the system on the produced water side and so that drove some of the of the outperformance. The other part of it was there was a high amount of fresh water sales.
OMS doesn't supply 100% percent of the freshwater in all areas to the Company. In some areas we go with third parties. And so in those areas you're not going to make as much money for OMS. That fresh water sale may not be as high going forward.
- Analyst
That's helpful. Thanks.
Looking at the Wild Basin project -- you guys laid out that $150 million of CapEx for 2016 and 2017. I was hoping you could talk about what -- I know it's a ways out but maybe full year 2017 EBITDA might look like for the project assuming every thing goes to plan?
- CFO
If everything goes according to plan and you get to the end of 2017 all that infrastructure should be running fairly full capacity by then. That asset could produce over $60 million of EBITDA on its own.
- Analyst
That was very helpful. Thanks.
Operator
Ron Mills, Johnson Rice & Company.
- Analyst
A couple questions -- just on the [duct] breakdowns -- I know you have 87 and I think you'll probably stay around there for year-end. But are most of those now located in Indian Hills and Alger areas, i.e. the core, or are some still spread across some of your other areas?
- Chairman & CEO
So you're right, we got 87 into this quarter and we think we'll be at low 80s by the end of the year. So we'll work down that wells waiting on completion through the end of this year.
When you look at the total you got right now about 20 of those wells that are outside the core. But, they are in close proximity and like we said before as we move forward all those wells will give us the flexibility to accelerate a bit if we get into an improving oil price.
- Analyst
Are those ducts outside the core? Or are those in areas nearby existing gathering systems and such -- where those would be relatively easy to bring on?
- Chairman & CEO
Yes, great point. There's quite a few of them that are, in fact, the majority are in eastern Red Bank and we've got full infrastructure in and around that area.
That's really one of our better performing areas. In fact, we've got that highlighted in the presentation this quarter on page 12.
- CFO
Ron, that's a great point. In terms of the matured of our asset because we have drilled most of our asset as we look at inventory outside the core most of that inventory actually has very good infrastructure. So it's not something that we would have to wait for additional infrastructure to come in to start drilling.
- Analyst
And then, Taylor, you talked about $500,000 savings if you can go to 100% white sand versus ceramics. But can you talk about the level of impact that the legacy contracts you're still drilling the wells under could have on the well cost? So if you used sand the 7.4 can theoretically go to 6.9 or 7 and if you go to market rates on rigs what's the potential cost impact on that side?
- President & COO
So, we're still working on what the contracts are going to be. But if you look in the market relative to our contracts which were really in the mid-20s, we think you're going to see -- it's clearly going to be in the teens and it could be mid-teens but we've still got to work through that.
In terms of just pure drilling cost, our drilling cost in 3Q was just a little over $2.5 million. We think that could drop by another $300,000 range to $400,000 as those things roll off.
- Analyst
So, combined you're talking about a potential another $750,000 or $800,000 of potential savings if the--
- President & COO
No, just -- it would be $300,000 to $400,000 in total on drilling. Some of that is contract and some of it is efficiency.
- Analyst
The higher number would include if you have the (multiple speakers) --
- President & COO
You're right. Sorry. When you combine those two.
- Analyst
Great. Lastly to follow up on Brad's OMS question.
Michael, the $20 million run rate of third quarter EBITDA -- is that a pretty good run rate? Or is really that $60 million to $75 million you talked about in prior calls the right range for the current OMS system once you average out the freshwater sales component?
- CFO
Yes, I think that asset as it gets kind of fully ramped up can be still that $60 million to $75 million longer term. That's a good number.
- Analyst
Perfect. Everything else has been asked. Thanks you guys.
Operator
David Deckelbaum, KeyBanc.
- Analyst
Good morning, Tommy, Michael, and Taylor. Thank you for taking my questions.
On the Wild Basin, Taylor, can you give us a little more color on what that development is going to look like in terms of -- you'll have the three rigs out there. I understand the timing of starting the drilling now and one production comes online. But can you talk about the pad design, the targets that you guys will be going after, and I assume that -- would all these be similar high-volume intensity completion that we're seeing right now in the core?
- President & COO
The plan is to drill those primarily at this point in the Bakkan in the first bench. We are still going to do some second bench tests. In fact, our first spacing unit, we'll have two second bench wells but really the balance we think is going to be -- we'll be able to recover the reserves in the Bakken in first bench.
The configuration of the wells -- density and spacing -- we are still working on, but it's somewhere around probably 13 to15 wells per spacing unit. It could be lower if you continue to get really, really big wells, but early to make that determination.
The configuration -- in terms of stimulation, at this point we are planning to do all high intensity stimulation in both the Bakken and in the Three Forks. And surface configuration is going to be like we've been doing -- we typically have -- for each spacing unit three pads that we drill off of and we'll have at least one central processing facility for the fluids.
- Analyst
Okay. That's helpful.
And should we be expecting more tweaks to the high intensity completion design in terms of more sand loading or is 9 million pounds the upper limit? Are we going to see more than 4 million pounds tested on slick water jobs?
- President & COO
We'll continue to optimize those fracs. What we've always done in the past and what we've done over this last year is to apply a consistent completion method without changing a lot of things. And once we get a firm understanding of what the impact is of the completion we'll start to change a few things. And so we'll continue to optimize those on both types of completions in 2016 and 2017.
- Analyst
One last one if I might. Michael or Tommy, whoever wants to take this one, beyond the Wild Basin OMS build out do you envision any other material upside in the out years for the OMS entity outside of just the organic growth just from production coming online? Do see additional opportunity for facilities build outs in other areas?
- CFO
Yes, David, that's a good question. If you remember the acquisition that we did back in late 2013, that asset actually came with three of our areas including Painted Woods and Foreman Butte. In those areas you have a little bit less infrastructure that we have the ability to potentially use OMS if that makes sense in those areas.
Right now we're evaluating that. Those are certainly opportunities.
But there's also in the future opportunities potentially on the third-party side. But that's not something that we've done currently.
- Analyst
Got it. Thanks for your time, and great job executing this quarter.
Operator
Eric Otto, CLSA.
- Analyst
Good morning. Thank you.
Just a question -- trying to get a little bit more color in terms of your thought process and higher oil prices. Could you give us some color on how you would think about outspend versus growth at say $55, and also how does paying down debt and hedging come into play at those levels?
- Chairman & CEO
Yes, I think it's a little bit of both. I think right now as we've talked about, a lot of the focus on the balance sheet and so in the near term it's probably more to do with that and reducing our debt.
And it will be a constant test of what is WTI doing? What is cost structure doing? How much cash we can generate and like we said, is keep volumes flattish.
In an ideal world if we can generate enough free cash to pay down debt and then maybe start expanding a bit, then great. But in the near term it's kind of focused on the balance sheet which is where the hedges come into play.
- Analyst
Is there a level of oil price and a period of time where we would have to stick around for you to get comfortable from switching from cash flow neutrality to ramping up growth and outspending?
- Chairman & CEO
It's probably depending on the cost structure, again, and ultimately it's about the margins. But it's probably somewhere in the $60 to $70 range. Probably closer to $60 but we've just got to -- we'll play it by ear.
- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Michael Rowe, TPH.
- Analyst
Good morning. Just wanted to make sure I am understanding the 2016 $350 million drilling completion spend that was cited earlier. Is that kind of assuming a $7.4 million well cost? And maybe 80% of the intense completions and then the lower well cost on the base completions?
- Chairman & CEO
Yes, it's the $7.4 million cost. You bake that in with about 70 completions and then running the three rigs -- with three rigs we talked about this in the past. It's about 16 wells or rigs, so that's drilling about 50 wells. So, we'll work off the wells waiting on completion will actually drop a bit from what we're projecting at year-end down to about 60 -- low 60s by the end of 2016.
- Analyst
Okay. Very good. That makes sense.
I guess maybe shifting gears just a little bit, I know on the midstream monetization there's not a whole lot you can mention but is there a timing where you all think this really needs to get done? I guess, how will the infrastructure spending trajectory look like throughout the year? If the timing shift a quarter or two, is that a big deal in your view?
- CFO
Yes, there's no specific timeline, Michael, around when you have to get something done. The good thing for us is that we did start -- we started talking about this earlier this year.
But with -- there were certainly a lot of changes that's happened in that business throughout the year that's improved our position, including outperformance on our current assets and getting closer to that Wild Basin asset and that coming on line. And so all of that has put us in a better position. We've got a significant amount of interest in it but we don't have any specific timing on it.
- Analyst
Maybe last one of if I could -- recognizing it's a pretty minor portion of your cash flow stream, but in terms of gas prices, do you expect to all else equal that realizations will kind of remain at these levels heading into 2016?
- CFO
Obviously our gas realizations as most have come down from a couple of years ago to where we are today. A lot of that's due to the lower NGL pricing. So right now we do expect gas pricing based on where the gas price is and where the oil price we expected to be next year to be in a similar range. But that's moving around quite a bit.
- Analyst
Thanks very much.
Operator
Noel Parks, Ladenburg Thalmann.
- Analyst
Good morning I had a few questions -- I got on a bit late so sorry if you've addressed any of these before. But as we look to reserves at year-end, I just wondered if you had any insight on the moving parts.
We know about the price component, but just wondering about how much of that you might be able to get back just through lower cost? And also now I guess you've got more production history on a lot of the high intensity completions. Just wondering about maybe also getting some help from revised curves.
- Chairman & CEO
So, it's still early in that process. We're working on our reserves for year-end and you mentioned a lot of things that are going to have an impact and price is a huge one. So, our SEC price [stack] at the end of last year was around $95 a barrel. And based on pricing that we've seen so far this year, you're going to be in the low $50.
So, that move from $95 to the low $50 is clearly going to have an impact. And when you think of where the impact is, the biggest piece is going to be on our undeveloped reserves. And it's really for two reasons.
We have some of those reserves that are booked outside the core area and so those are going to be probably a little below the threshold of the economic cut off. The other portion of that is with slow drilling activity and the SEC rule around capturing undeveloped reserves within a five year window, you're going to lose the ability to get some of those PUDs drilled in that timeframe. So, early to tell where the number's going to fall out but clearly it's downward bias with that lower price deck and we'll have more data after the end of the year.
- Analyst
Sure. And on the cost side, is that a little bit of a help in offsetting some of the oil price downdraft or doesn't really move the needle that much?
- Chairman & CEO
No, it definitely helps. When you take into account like we said this reduction in well costs from what was $10.5 million at the end of last year to $7.4 million currently and also add on that reduction in LOE, significant reduction in the differentials, all those items have made a big impact.
I think a good way to think about at least at this point is when you look at our borrowing base redetermination, even with a pretty significant drop in the bank decks, our absolute commitment only dropped from $1.7 billion to $1.525 billion.
- Analyst
Right. Thanks. That's helpful.
I started thinking a bit about when we see a rebound in prices to whatever degree, kind of what the industry response to that would look like? I'm just wondering, to the degree that you've seen a lot of rigs laid down in the Bakkan, are you aware -- has most of that iron just been stacked locally? Or has it moved out of the Basin as far as you can tell?
- Chairman & CEO
Yes, from what we know, most of that -- most if not all has remained local in the Basin. This downturn is a little different in that the companies have really worked hard to get those rigs into more centralized locations and leaving them out where they might get cannibalized and trying to have them in good shape for a rebound.
- Analyst
Great. The only other thing I was wondering -- I know your working interest is high across your properties but have you been able to pick up any increases from seeing any of the non-operators going non-consent?
- President & COO
We have this year and we also in past years have always had really a little bit of a bias up on our working interest as we go through the year. And so we've ended up having an average working interest this year that's kind of 75% to 80% range. We budgeted coming in it was a bit lower than that.
So, we have benefited from the ability to pick those up. Because it's all in these core wells that are really highly economic. The other thing that we've been able to do in the core is get some trades done and so we've been able to trade our non-op interest in other guys wells into working interest in our wells in the core and so that has been a big help as well.
- Analyst
Can you give any rough quantifying of that, what you've see in there?
- CFO
No, that's really more trading acreage -- you're trading core acreage for core acreage with other operators. But it does get us -- we believe our guys are doing a great job on the operating side getting costs down in a pretty differential way so we want a higher impact to our own wells. And what you'll see is that very little of our capital goes to non-op activity and that's because we continue to trade in and out of other people's wells back into our own.
- Analyst
That's all for me.
Operator
James Spicer, Wells Fargo.
- Analyst
Hi guys, good morning. Most of my questions have been answered. Just a couple of clarifications on OMS if I could.
First of all, on the Wild Basin gas plant, what was the total cost of building that plant? And then when you're thinking about monetization options I assume that the gas plant is part of that, is that correct?
- CFO
Yes, in the Wild Basin we've never given a direct number just for the gas plant, James. But overall capital spend in Wild Basin is going to be on the order of magnitude of around $250 million.
We said that over the next two years you're going to have an additional $150 million so we've spent about $100 million to-date, maybe a little bit over that. Then, it will be included, though, in any package that we do -- the plant as well as the infrastructure within Wild Basin.
- Analyst
And then, just thinking about EBITDA generation potential for the asset as a whole, I think you said $60 million to $75 million for the existing asset and then another $60 million just for the plant when it's up and running. So, $120 million to $135 million on a pro forma basis?
- CFO
That's correct.
- Analyst
That's it. Thank you.
Operator
Gail Nicholson, KLR Group.
- Analyst
Good morning. Looking at those 87 gross wells in backlog, is the average working interest in those wells in that 75% to 80% range or is it lower than that?
- Chairman & CEO
It is still in that kind of 70% range. It's not wildly different.
- Analyst
Should we assume in that 70% to 80% range in 2016 for the wells that are completed for the working interest standpoint?
- Chairman & CEO
Yes, the average interest is 70%-ish -- maybe biased a little bit lower but it's right around 70%.
- Analyst
Great. Then looking at the Wild Basin acreage, do you pick up a higher gas composition in Wild Basin versus Indian Hills?
- Chairman & CEO
Wild Basin does have a higher GOR than Indian Hills -- deeper part of the basin, and more gas content and more energy but also higher EURs as well.
- Analyst
Great. Looking at the differential -- when you look at 2016 you talked about $5 less NYMEX, with the additional potential [takeaway] packets coming online in 2016 do you feel like there could be more room for improvement in that differential? And it then in a potential improving commodity price environment do you feel like the 8% to 10% versus NYMEX, that's the historical norm, is still fair, or do you feel like it might've shifted down?
- CFO
Yes, good questions, Gail. I think the differential certainly has always kind of been in this 8% to 10% range in higher oil prices, lower oil prices and really for the long haul. There are periods of time where it gaps out either high or low. But for the most part it tends to come back into this 8% to 10% range.
So I think we feel pretty comfortable that even if -- next year in a lower oil price environment you're going to still be in that kind of 10% range. And then if oil prices come back dramatically you'll probably have periods of time where it might be a little lower than that but it will probably rebalance out into the 8% to 10% range.
- Analyst
Okay, great. Thank you.
Operator
This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Tommy Nusz for any closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.
- Chairman & CEO
Thanks. Oasis continues to be externally focused on growing value. The front line of offense has been our operations where you've seen and will continue to see substantial moves in capital efficiency with well costs down by 30%, LOE down by 25%, and well productivity from high-intensity completions up over 30% in the core.
When coupled with our liquidity of over $1.3 billion we are in a strong position and have considerable financial flexibility for the foreseeable future. This is a great position to be in whether we see a prolonged down cycle or start to see a rebound in oil prices. Thanks for participating in our call today.
Operator
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect the line.