In Martin County’s Midland Basin, Block 35T3N has quietly become one of Ovintiv’s most disciplined manufacturing lines. By comparing two projects on the same block—the LADY BIRD Factory (2024) and the newly permitted FREETAIL F21M Factory (2025–26)—a clear pattern emerges: identical personas, nearly identical cadence, and a repeatable $60–75 million capital cell that Ovintiv is rolling forward pad by pad.
The Personas: What Kind of Asset Is Block 35T3N?
Sub-Surface Persona
LADY BIRD proved Block 35T3N is being developed as a tightly engineered horizontal oil factory in the Spraberry trend, with laterals stacked in a single bench and drilled as a single co-development phase before moving deeper in later waves OVINTIV USA INC on the LADY BIR…. This approach maximizes capital efficiency and keeps geology, frac design, and well spacing constant from pad to pad.
Surface Persona
On the surface, LADY BIRD was a six-well, single-pad hub—one rig, one frac spread, and one centralized production facility with tanks, vapor recovery, roads, and emissions controls concentrated into a compact footprint OVINTIV USA INC on the LADY BIR…. The FREETAIL F21M air permit uses the same OGS New Project Notification – New Registration framework, confirming Ovintiv is repeating the same surface architecture rather than inventing a new one.
Bottom line: The Personas didn’t change. Ovintiv is cloning a proven template across Block 35T3N.
The Cadence: How Fast These Factories Are Built
LADY BIRD’s measured cadence is the blueprint:
Phase LADY BIRD First license Jun 4, 2024 Average license Jun 5, 2024 Rig on pad Jun 15, 2024 Last spud Jun 19, 2024 First completion Jul 9, 2024 Last completion Jul 13, 2024 Permanent tank battery Oct 22, 2024
That yields a Factory clock of:
- License → Rig: ~10 days
- Rig → Frac finish: ~28 days
- Frac → Permanent facility: ~101 days
- Permit → Full surface build-out: ~139 days (≈ 4.6 months) OVINTIV USA INC on the LADY BIR…
Now fast-forward to FREETAIL F21M. Its NOTIFYNEW air permit was received and completed Jan 5, 2026, which is the same “permanent tank battery installed” milestone LADY BIRD hit in October 2024. Applying LADY BIRD’s cadence backward, FREETAIL almost certainly followed the same pattern:
- Licenses: late Aug 2025
- Rig on pad: late Aug / early Sep 2025
- Frac: late Sep 2025
- Temporary production: Fall 2025
- Permanent facility: Jan 2026
Same block. Same timing. Same machine.
The Capital: What Each Factory Costs
A six-well Midland Factory—the size LADY BIRD demonstrated—typically prices out like this:
Subsurface (drill + complete)
- $9–11 million per well
- 6 wells = $54–66 million
Permanent surface (what FREETAIL’s air permit represents)
- Tank battery, VRU, LACT, compression, fuel gas, power/SCADA, roads & containment
- $6–10 million per pad
Total per Factory cell
$60–75 million
That is the real meaning of FREETAIL F21M: Ovintiv has just locked in another $60–75 million production hub on Block 35T3N for the next decade or more.
What Block 35T3N Has Become
By repeating the LADY BIRD model at FREETAIL, Ovintiv has converted Block 35T3N into a manufacturing grid:
- Batch-permit wells
- Drill continuously
- Frac in a single campaign
- Produce early on temporary equipment
- Install permanent tanks once decline curves are known
This is not speculative drilling. It is late-stage capital deployment into a proven, cash-flowing asset.
Why This Matters
For anyone tied to surface infrastructure—power, compression, vapor recovery, water, chemicals, automation, logistics, or midstream—a NOTIFYNEW air permit on Block 35T3N is a flashing green light. It means:
- Gas is being captured, not flared
- Power loads are permanent
- Volumes are stabilized
- Capital is locked in for 10–15 years
Ovintiv isn’t just drilling here.
They’re manufacturing oil and gas—$70 million at a time—on repeat.
