North Dakota led America’s unconventional oil revolution more than a decade ago. Now its Bakken shale field is leading the big retreat. Oil output in the state, home to the Bakken’s most productive parts, has fallen by more than a third this year — a bigger drop than many individual Opec producers pledged in their historic supply-cutting deal in April — to less than 1m barrels a day, according to one industry estimate. The cutback follows a consumption collapse, triggered by the Covid-19 crisis, that saw US oil prices crash to less than zero last month. Despite recovering to about $26 a barrel, the West Texas Intermediate benchmark is still down more than half since the start of the year. As a result, total US oil production is expected to drop by up to 3m barrels a day from a high near 13m b/d a few months ago, according to analysts.OPEC Basket: $22.40
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Back to the Bakken
Active rigs:
$23,72 | 5/8/2020 | 05/08/2019 | 05/08/2018 | 05/08/2017 | 05/08/2016 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Active Rigs | 20 | 64 | 60 | 49 | 27 |
Two wells coming off confidential list today --
Friday, May 8, 2020: 25 for the month; 75 for the quarter, 302 for the year:
- 36591, drl, Rimrock, Skunk Creek 8-2-3-5H3, first bench Three Forks, South Fork, t--; cum --;
- 35670, SI/NC, Zavanna, Stranger 28-21-6H, Poe, t--; cum 147K in less than 5 months; huge well; a 45K month;
The Bakken Shale is being hit especially hard by production cuts this spring. Crude oil-focused producers large and small have been shutting in wells and putting well completions on hold, slashing daily crude output by more than one-sixth. The rig count is down by half in less than two months — to 26, the play’s lowest level since mid-2016 — and thousands of oilfield workers have been let go. All this is happening despite the facts that the Bakken’s four-county core has some of the best shale assets outside the Permian and that in 2017-19 the play was super-hot, with crude production increasing by 50%. That three-year growth spurt spurred the development of a number of new crude gathering systems, many of which now face a period of significant underutilization. Today, we discuss highlights from our new Drill Down report on oil production and supporting infrastructure in the U.S.’s #2 shale play.
Bakken dropped in 2009 and 2015-16 also. It is price sensitive because ut's shale and inland. Great reservoir, but the talk about competing with OPEC was silly.
ReplyDeleteI agree 1000%. The Saudis are not sensitive to price.
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