Things To Watch For This Summer With Regard to Fracking

My hunch is there is going to be a lot more truck traffic in the Bakken this summer: to the best of my knowledge, no one consolidates data regarding frack fleets (frack spreads) in the Bakken. We all know how many active drilling rigs there are at any one time in North Dakota (currently about 205), but no one, again, to the best of my knowledge, knows how many frack spreads there are at any one time in North Dakota.

But the tea leaves are telling us that the number of frack spreads will increase this summer. See a recent posting regarding this subject.

With the increased number of fracking spreads, look for the following:

• price pressure on fracking companies; more competition should lower cost of fracking
• more trucks on the road
• shortages of sand and proppants

One of the things to watch for: if there is a shortage of sand and proppants, will operators decrease the number of stages, or will they simply delay fracking until they get adequate supply? I don't think they will wait; that's not in the nature of oilmen; fracking will go on as scheduled, and the frack teams will do with what they get.

The larger operators have their own dedicated spreads, and are first in line for scheduling with the major fracking companies. The smaller operators are at a disadvantage with regard to scheduling fracking.

There is not a shortage of water in the Bakken for fracking. In addition, with WAWS, access to fracking water continues to improve daily.

For newbies: remember that some operators have their own dedicated frack spreads; I try to note that when I remember at this post. In addition, the bigger frack companies have gone to 24-hour operations.