Petrel error: “unable to find first line of input data”

I ran into this today, and my best guess is that I was trying to use ASCII columnar data rather than Standard Keyword data.  

File that didn’t work:

MD TVD EW NS INC AZM
2018 2018 0 0 0.57 63.8
2070 2070 0.42 0.33 0.57 49.74
2160 2160 1.37 0.69 0.88 66.9
2250 2249.98 2.9 1.4 1.19 68.68

File that did work:

*WELL 33xxxxxxxxxxxx    
*XYUNITS  M    
*DEPUNITS F    
*COLUMNS *MD *INC *AZM
0 0 0
2018 0.57 63.8
2070 0.57 49.74
2160 0.88 66.9
2250 1.19 68.68
2340 1.55 71.48

Petra exports in both formats for individual wells but not for bulk export.