Sanish Field Oil Production Decline -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Elsewhere (all Teegue links are broken; couldn't take the heat) they're talking about the decline in production rate in Whiting's huge field, the Sanish.

My hunch is that down the road, these wells will be re-fracked.

But for the moment, the writer may be on to something. Some of the most prolific fields have been in Mountrail County. Here are the production totals by month for Mountrail County for selected months:

• August, 2008: 1,586,456
• August, 2009: 2,934,463
• August, 2010: 4,194, 633
• August, 2011: 4,495,934
• August, 2012: 6,043,517
• August, 2013: 6,837,328
• August, 2014: 7,831,948

 [Update: December 1, 2014 -- another example, I guess, for some of the crazy analyses over at that discussion board.]

A couple of things: the "business of the business" is more important than the business activity itself. In this case, the monthly production is simply one data point. Other data points that would be helpful would be the current takeaway capacity across the Bakken (probably not a factor, in this case, but we don't know), and the producers' ability to adjust production based on price of oil. The price of oil dropped this past summer. [See date of original post.]

Here are the NDIC figures for the past year or so for the Sanish-Bakken (pay attention to the second column [total monthly production] and the fifth column [number of producing wells]:

Date	BBLS Oil	BBLS Water	MCF Gas	Wells Producing	BBLS Injected	MCF Injected	Wells Injecting
10-2014	1706358	827751	1728699	506	0	0	0
9-2014	1733100	752736	1765720	511	0	0	0
8-2014	1724606	755745	1731005	507	0	0	0
7-2014	1741998	769634	1669691	498	0	0	0
6-2014	1673754	680133	1641004	489	0	0	0
5-2014	1791079	734715	1644255	490	0	0	0
4-2014	1760075	652506	1414323	487	0	0	0
3-2014	1823046	674528	1529935	480	0	0	0
2-2014	1707437	629455	1444966	472	0	0	0
1-2014	1875026	638490	1522418	469	0	0	0
12-2013	1907651	630681	1479598	466	0	0	0
11-2013	1953140	671015	1480479	470	0	0	0
10-2013	1932251	706470	1499104	464	0	0	0
9-2013	1820167	627084	1428481	449	0	0	0
8-2013	1902247	652797	1397520	444	0	0	0
7-2013	1892035	671045	1451987	440	0	0	0
6-2013	1782843	644473	1413498	422	0	0	0
5-2013	1882670	633793	1461066	414	0	0	0
4-2013	1873372	604029	1438935	412	0	0	0
3-2013	1953856	638555	1475639	403	0	0	0
2-2013	1774305	604576	1333304	397	0	0	0
1-2013	1841049	614747	1368544	384	0	0	0