Profit calculators
Fracked Well Profitability Calculator
Lower lifting costs, more years of profit: see what it means for your own fracked well. This free calculator is based on Hiltek’s fracked well proforma. Enter your well’s production, oil price, lifting costs (LOE) and treatment terms to see monthly profit, break-even, 7-year net profit and profitable life with and without microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR).
Run your own fracked well: monthly profit, 7-year outlook and profitable life
Starts from Hiltek’s fracked well proforma example: 75 BOPD, $3,500 a month in lifting costs (LOE), a $650 monthly MEOR treatment with an 18% net reduction in LOE (treatment included), and 25% more oil. Enter your own production, oil price, lifting cost and treatment terms, plus the oil your lease now sends to disposal, and every figure updates as you type.
Send these numbers to HiltekOpens an email with your inputs filled in, so we can talk about a Production Pilot.
1 Monthly profit and loss, one well
| Per well, per month | Before | With MEOR | Change |
|---|
2 Where the extra profit comes from, one well per month
3 Net profit with and without MEOR ($ per year), 7 years, one well
4 7-year detail, one well
Production falls each year by each case’s annual decline; lifting costs, treatment included, rise by the annual LOE increase from year 2; oil price is held flat.
5 7-year totals, one well
| 7 years | Without | With MEOR | Change |
|---|
Assumptions and how to read the results
- Order of the LOE math
- The monthly MEOR treatment is added to today’s lifting costs first, then the net LOE reduction is taken off the combined amount: revised LOE = (current LOE + treatment) × (1 − % net reduction), as in Hiltek’s fracked well proforma. The net reduction is the savings from fewer hot-oil jobs, cleanouts, chemical treatments, pump pulls and downtime, measured against that combined cost.
- Monthly treatment for vertical fracked wells
- In a vertical fracked well the pump sits close to where the fractures meet the wellbore, so treatment poured down the annulus reaches the mouths of the fractures as well as the rods and tubing. For other fracked wells, see the note under the input.
- The production increase is a one-time step
- The % increase is applied once, in year 1, and is sustained. It does not compound. From then on the treated well declines at the slower MEOR rate (0.5% a year in the example, against 6% untreated), so the gap between the two cases widens every year.
- What “profitable life” means
- The number of years until annual net profit turns negative as production declines and lifting costs rise, with no upper limit, worked out as on the proforma’s 7-Year Outlook tab. Oil price is held flat, and royalty and severance tax are taken on gross revenue.
- Break-even
- Break-even production = monthly lifting costs ÷ (oil price × (1 − royalty − severance tax) × producing days). Break-even oil price is the same calculation solved for price. Lifting cost per barrel = monthly lifting costs ÷ barrels sold.
- Oil carried into disposal water
- Oil lost a day = disposal water × water density × oil concentration (ppm) ÷ 1,000,000 ÷ oil density, with water at 350.15 lb/bbl × (1 + (60 − °F) × 0.00005) and oil at 350.15 lb/bbl × 141.5 ÷ (°API + 131.5) for a typical 32 °API crude, as in Hiltek’s oil carry-over loss calculator: 500 bbl of water a day at 750 ppm, 45 °F and 32 °API carries about 13.0 bbl of oil a month, $911 at $70 oil. The reduction keeps that share of the oil in the sales tank, sold at the oil price less royalty and severance tax, and it lowers the MEOR case’s break-even and lifting cost per barrel. It is a lease total, shared evenly by the wells and held flat over the years. The example starts at 0% so the results match the proforma; enter the reduction you expect, or measure it with oil-in-water tests in a pilot.
- What is not included
- Gas and NGL sales, the cost of drilling and completing the well, discounting and oil price changes.
What makes up monthly LOE
- Electricity and fuel: powering the beam and rod-pump motors
- Field labor and pumper: daily or weekly gauge checks and basic upkeep
- Water handling: disposal and hauling of produced salt water
- Chemical treatment: continuous or batch dosing for paraffin and scale
- Regulatory compliance: annual pressure testing, integrity logs and filing fees
- Lease maintenance: site access upkeep, road grading and clearing
Expensive periodic events MEOR helps avoid
| Downhole event | Estimated cost | Typical downtime |
|---|---|---|
| Paraffin or scale cleanout | $1,000–$3,000 | 1–3 days |
| Snapped sucker rod | $1,500–$4,000 | 2–5 days |
| Stuck or worn pump pull | $2,000–$5,000 | 4–7 days |
| Tubing split or joint leak | $4,000–$7,500+ | 7–14+ days |
Typical ranges from Hiltek Resource Recovery; actual figures vary by well. Fewer of these events is a large part of the LOE reduction.
Method from Hiltek’s simplified fracked well proforma (November 2026): royalty and severance tax on gross revenue; the production increase applies once and does not compound; the monthly MEOR treatment is added to current LOE and the net LOE reduction applies to the combined amount; production declines and LOE rises from year 2; oil price held flat; oil kept out of disposal water from Hiltek’s oil carry-over loss calculator. Example values are illustrative, not a forecast for any specific well. No published field study we found yet measures how much microbial treatment slows fracked-well decline, so treat the MEOR case as a scenario to test in a pilot.
Sources for this section
- Hiltek Resource Recovery, Fracked well proforma, simplified (November 2026): method and example values of this calculator
- Hiltek Resource Recovery, oil carry-over loss calculator (November 2026): oil lost in disposal water