Director's Cut; Data For May, 2014; Another New Production Record; Production Increased By Almost 4% Month-Over-Month

The July Director's Cut is out.

Bakken oil hype. 

Oil:

• May, 2014: 1,039,635 bopd (preliminary; new all-time high)
• April, 2014: 1,003,256 bopd (revised; first month to go over 1 million bopd) 
• April, 2014: 1,001,149 bopd (original)
  
• delta: 36,379 bopd
• 36,379 / 1,003,256 = 3.6% (fairly significant)

Disclaimer: this update is always done in haste; typographical errors are likely. This is for my use only. Others should go to the source. 

Producing wells:

May, 2014:  10,892 (new all-time high)
April, 2014: 10,665

Permitting:

• May, 2014: 234
• April, 2014: 233
• All-time high was 370 in 10/2012
  

Pricing:

• Today, 2014: $84.50
• June, 2014: $90.02
• May, 2014: $88.31
• April, 2014: $85.68
• March, 2014: $86.72
• February, 2014: $86.89 

Rig count:

• Today: 191 (all time high was 218 on 5/29/2012)
• June, 2014: 190
• May, 2014: 189
• April, 2014: 188
• March, 2014: 193
  

Director's comments:

Number of wells waiting completion: 610, pretty much unchanged. US natural gas storage is now 28% below the five-year average indicating increasing prices in the foreseeable future. The percentage of natural gas flared dropped to 28% as the new Tioga gas plant increased to full capacity. The historical high was 36% in 09/2011.