Time For A New Poll: North Dakota Daily Production In May, 2013

Time for a new poll.

First, the results of the current poll in which we asked the reason for the recent surge in the price of oil:

• weakening dollar: 16%
• tighter supplies: 15%
• Mideast strife: 68%

Now, for the new poll.

Pretty simple. Will North Dakota oil production in May, 2013, set a new all-time record? The month of May was a particularly difficult month this year, mostly due to spring flooding and impassable roads (due to mud). It will be interesting to see if severe weather in May affected overall production to a noticeable extent. To make it interesting, the threshold will be a 1% increase.

Will North Dakota oil production in May, 2013, exceed production in April, 2013, by more than 1%. The next Director's Cut will provide production data from May, 2013, and should be posted late next week at the earliest.

For the archives: FinancialSense.com is reporting that Bakken production will eventually plateau. Well, duh. I'm not sure what the point of the article was. Having said that, the graph was most interesting. North Dakota is currently producing about 800,000 bopd. In 2055, these are the production estimates:

• proven: 500,000 bopd
• probable: 600,000 bopd
• possible: 900,000 bopd

The graph does not indicate which metric for technically-recoverable oil they are using:

• USGS: 7 billion bbls (which the USGS admits, is conservative)
• CLR, pre-2013 USGS assessment: 24 billion bbls (middle Bakken, upper Three Forks)
• CLR, post-2013 USGS assessment: 54 billion bbls (middle Bakken, four benches of the Three Forks) 

"They" should be using the USGS estimate; if so, the graph referenced above could look a lot different in 2055. By then I will have celebrated by 100th birthday.

But again, worse case scenario: North Dakota oil production will be "about the same" in 2055 as it was in 2011. Pretty spectacular, I would say. 2011 was a pretty good year by all accounts.