Conservative estimates show it will require 40,000 wells and 20 years to complete drilling activities in the Bakken and Three Forks formations. Some projections put the total well count in the North Dakota Williston Basin as high as 120,000, the study says. North Dakota had 10,100 producing wells in January, including 6,935 Bakken and Three Forks wells.
The study is still on-going. Once completed and published, I will link at the sidebar.Hushka said companies are expected to complete an average of 2,100 to 2,300 wells per year over the next five years in North Dakota. The main reason they won’t drill more wells is a limit on how much money they have to spend, he said.
If it really did take 120,000 wells, at 2,000 wells/year = 60 years of drilling. Yup, the boom will eventually end. LOL.
By the way, regular readers know that I was the first non-industry blog author from North Dakota who predicted at least 48,000 wells based on simple arithmetic. That was some time ago.
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A slew of interesting polls putting North Dakota in a good light have been released over the past few days.
Here's another one.
The Dickinson Press is reporting:
Nearly nine out of 10 North Dakotans rate the state’s public kindergarten through 12th-grade education system as excellent or good – the highest rating in the nation.
Eighty-seven percent of North Dakotans gave the quality of K-12 education in the state positive marks in a Gallup poll released Wednesday.
I was surprised to see North Dakota beat out Iowa -- by a healthy margin. It's always been my worldview that Iowans thought they had the best public school system. I know Iowa has seemed to falter over the past three election cycles. Any correlation?The public school systems in Iowa (83 percent), Minnesota (81 percent) and South Dakota and Nebraska (80 percent) trailed North Dakota closely in the poll.
