EIA's Monthly Drilling Report -- The Bakken Continues To Shine -- April, 2016

EIA's monthly drilling report has just been posted at this link: http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/dpr-full.pdf. At this link, one can find links to sub-reports. The graphs are based on actual data through March, 2016, with projections through May, 2016.

There are several interesting story lines:

• there really are only five significant on-shore oil and gas plays in the US
• productivity per rig continues to increase
• per rig, the Bakken beats the Permian on both natural gas and (by a huge margin) oil
• per rig, the Eagle Ford for natural gas easily outproduces the Permian or the Bakken; in fact, although the Eagle Ford pales in comparison to the Utica and the Marcellus, at least the Eagle Ford is in the "same ball park" when it come to natural gas (I believe the Eagle Ford has some areas that are primarily oil; other areas primarily natural gas)
• "legacy oil" from the Eagle Ford has plummeted; the Bakken has shown the most resilience of the three major oil plays (Bakken, Eagle Ford, Permian)
• in natural gas, the Bakken is the most resilient of all five plays (oil and/or natural gas)