Clay Gaspar
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Devon Energy
Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. Devon's first quarter outperformance was a result of strong operational execution across the board, where each asset team delivered results that exceeded targets for production and capital efficiency. As Rick touched on, the great start of the year was underpinned by three key factors, excellent well productivity, improved cycle times and outstanding base production results.
For the remainder of my prepared remarks, I plan to cover asset specific highlights that are driving this positive business momentum and provide insights and observations that drive Devon's improved outlook for 2024. Let's begin on Slide 7 with an overview of our Delaware basin activity, which accounted for 65% of our capital investment for the quarter. We operated a program of 16 rigs and four completion crews across our 400,000 net acre position in the play, resulting in a production growth of 5% compared to the same period last year. This volume growth was driven by 59 new wells brought online that predominantly targeted the Wolfcamp formation. In aggregate, these wells impact -- these high impact wells achieved average initial flow rates of more than 3200 BOE per day. This performance results in the best well productivity from our Delaware basin assets in more than two years.
On Slide 8, while we delivered high economic results across the basin, I'd like to drill down on three impressive projects that were the biggest drivers of our outperformance for the quarter. On the far -- far left side of the slide, Devon's largest development area in the quarter was the 13 well Van Doo Dah project in our cotton draw area of Lea County. With a thoughtful upfront planning and improved efficiencies from our simul frac [Phonetic] operations, the team brought Van Doo Dah online nearly two weeks ahead of plan. The massive scale of this project was showcased by the peak flow rates that reached nearly 30,000 gross barrels of oil per day. This further -- this success further reinforces why I believed the STACK [Phonetic] pay potential in Cotton Draw to be one of the best tranches of acreage in all of North America. Another net worthy project that achieved the highest initial rates of any project in the quarter, was a CBR 1510 in our Stateline area.
This three-mile Upper Wolfcamp development was made possible by an acreage trade, recorded average 30-day production rates of 5,600 BOE per day. Very few projects in the history of the Delaware Basin have reached this level of productivity and the expected recovery from this project are also extraordinary projected to exceed 2 million BOE per well. And lastly, I would like to cover a key appraisal success that we had in the quarter and the Wolfcamp B interval of our Thistle area. This proof-of-concept well came in significantly above our predrill expectations with peak rates for the single appraisal well exceeding 5,000 BOE per day. This positive result adds to our resource depth in the Delaware by derisking approximately 50 locations in the area.
While the hydrocarbon stream in the deeper Wolfcamp intervals generally shift towards the higher gas rates, the oil cuts are strong enough for this opportunity to compete very effectively for capital in our portfolio. Given this, we expect to incorporate more Wolfcamp B wells into our future multi-zone developments as we plan for our '25 program and beyond.
Turning to Slide 9. We are clearly off to a great start with our 2024 plan in the Delaware. As you can see on the left, our well productivity is on track to materially improve year-over-year. As a reminder, this improvement is driven by returning to a higher allocation of capital to New Mexico, where our inventory depth is the greatest. It is important to note that we have not changed spacing or lateral length to achieve these improvements. Importantly, as you can see to the right of this slide, we're also pairing this with improved well productivity in the Delaware Basin with efficiency gains. The adoption of simul frac across the board segment -- across the broader segment of our activity has been a key driver of compressed cycle times, but the high-grading of rig fleets also drive down overall well cost is contributing. I want to congratulate the teams for this success and expect this momentum in the Delaware to continue as we work our way through the year.
We included Slide 10 to remind everyone of the recent infrastructure build-out that we either led, participated in or just are benefiting from. Our patience in giving this highly prolific area, some breathing room for this infrastructure to mature was the right decision from an economic perspective as well as an environmental standpoint. Slide 11 is an updated view of Enverus' remaining inventory of the top Delaware Basin producers. As you can see from this credible third parties perspective, we have one of the largest inventories among operators in the basin, providing us with a multi-decade resource that will drive enterprise-wide performance for many years to come.
While the Delaware Basin is the driving force behind our performance, we do value a diversified portfolio across the very best oil and liquids-rich basins in the United States. I would also like to briefly highlight a few items from those basins. In the Eagle Ford, the steps we have taken to tighten our capital efficiency are yielding results. In the first quarter, we brought online 26 infill wells and a handful of highly successful refracs that resulted in oil growth rate of 7% year-over-year.
Importantly, we're able to deliver this growth while spending 13% less capital versus the average run rate of 2023. This improved capital efficiency is driven by less appraisal requirements to tactically advance our redevelopment of the field, along with the benefits of a more balanced program across our assets in DeWitt and Karnes Counties. In the Williston Basin, production increased 9% in the quarter. This performance exceeded our internal expectations due to excellent well productivity in the core of the play from our [Indecipherable] and North John Elk projects and better uptimes from our base productions.
For the full year, the oil-weighted production stream for this asset is on track to generate up to $500 million of cash flow for the company. Moving to the Powder River Basin, our activity in 2024 is designed to build upon the well productivity gains we achieved last year where our Niobrara wells increased flow rates by 20% from historic levels. For the rest of 2024, we plan to bring online around 10 Niobrara wells across our acreage in Converse County. The objective of this activity is to refine our view on spacing and optimize completions designs to drive down costs as we advance this area towards full field development.
Lastly, in the Anadarko Basin, with the recent weakness in gas price, our capital activity was limited to one project placed online in the first quarter, but the flow rates were very impressive. The Allen pad that co-developed both the Meramec and Woodford formations achieved peak cumulative rates for this pad of five wells exceeding 20,000 BOE per day with liquids comprising nearly 40% of the production mix. As we look to the rest of 2024, we're reducing activity to two rigs in our Dow JV area and intend to bring online the majority of the activity in the second half of the year to capture the higher gas price expected in the winter months.
In summary, I'm proud of the capital-efficient results that our team has delivered this quarter and the strong momentum that we have built as we look to execute on our plan over the remainder of the year and beyond. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Jeff for a financial review. Jeff?