Bakken Production and Hydrofracking -- The Oil Drum

This is certainly coincidental. Just after several posts on the dreaded Bakken decline rate, there's a long article on "future Bakken production and hydrofracking" at The Oil Drum.

According to the January Director’s Cut the rig count in the state has varied from 188 in October, through 186 in November, and 184 in December, to 181 at the time of the report. Why is this number important? Well, as I will explain in more detail later, the decline rate of an individual well in the region is very high, and thus the industry has to continue to drill wells at a rapid rate, just to replace the decline. (This is the “Red Queen” scenario that Rune Likvern has explained so well.)

The DMR recognize this by showing the effect of several different scenarios as the number of rigs changes. For example, they project that 170 rigs will be able to drill around 2,000 wells a year. At that level, and with some assumptions about the productivity of individual wells that I am not going to address here, but which Rune discussed, I would suggest that it is irrational to expect that new wells will continue to sustain existing first year levels as the wells move away from formation sweet spots. 

So, we'll see. 

The comments at the linked article are also interesting.

I've posted cumulative production from three formations (the Madison, the Red River, and the Bakken), through. 2011. I assume the 2012 data should be coming out soon.

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A Note To The Granddaughters

In 1969, I was a senior at Williston (ND) High School. Zap was in the news ("Zip to Zap" -- see third or fourth comment below):

Zip to Zap, 1969