Stripper Wells -- Not Only The Bakken

I had no intention of linking this article; it wasn't all that interesting. But then every once in awhile I get a comment from someone who is incredulous at the average amount of oil being produced by wells in North Dakota.

So, I'm linking the story for now. It may be useful later on.

According to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), a stripper oil well is one that produces 10 barrels of oil per day (BOPD), or 60,000 cubic feet (Mcf) of natural gas per day or less.

According to the National Stripper Well Association (NSWA), most oil stripper wells average 2.01 barrels per day. There are around 400,000 of them in the United States, with about 320,000 still actively producing oil. Since 1994, the number of oil stripper wells has remained relatively constant.

Oil stripper wells accounted for over 16 percent of all the oil produced in the United States in 2009.

62 percent of the wells in Colorado are stripper wells.

When I was out in California this past month, I saw a lot of very, very old pumpers along the San Pedro Harbor and Huntington Beach that were pumping once again, something I don't recall seeing last year.