The Director's Cut Is Out -- April, 2016, Data; Almost 2,500 DUCs And Inactive Wells; North Dakota Natural Gas Production Hit All-Time High In March, 2016; Flaring? Down To 9%; ND Has Met April, 2020, Target Four Years Ahead Of Schedule

Updates

July 6, 2016: Rystad Energy's analysis here. A must-read.

June 20, 2016: Oilprice.com story -- record-breaking production drop in North Dakota.
 

Original Post

These are the three headlines:

• although total production dropped a whopping 6% month-over-month, ND production still manages greater than 1 million bopd  (but just barely)
• there are now almost 2,500 DUCs and inactive wells in North Dakota (one can presume most of them are Bakken/Three Forks wells
• flaring has now met the target set for April, 2020 -- four years ahead of schedule (I always said "they" meet the "no-flaring' goal if they quit drilling)

The Director's Cut is out.

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Completing Uncompleted Wells -- Well, Sort Of

DUCs?

• Estimated wells waiting on completion services 2 is 892, down 28 from the end of March to the end of April.

The results of the poll in which we asked: the number of Bakken DUCs reported in the June Director's Cut (April, 2016) data, will be:

• more than 920: 82%
• less than 921: 18% 

I would have bet that the number would have increased.

Inactive wells, yup, here it is -- inactive well count has jumped to 1,590, up 67 from the end of March, to the end of April.

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Flaring

Gas capture statistics are as follows:

• Statewide 91% 
• Statewide Bakken 92% 
• Non -FBIR Bakken 93% 
• FBIR Bakken 88% Trust FBIR Bakken 88% 
• Fee FBIR 91% 

Targets:

• April – April 2015 capture target=77% 
• April 2016 – April 2016 capture target=80% 
• April 2016 - April 2018 capture target=85% 
• April 2018 - April 2020 capture target=88% 
• After April 2020 capture target=91% 

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Comments

Comments from the Director's Cut: the number of well completions fell from 66 (final) in March to 41 (preliminary) in April. My comment: but yet, the number of DUCs decreased from 920 to 892. It would appear that the way to explain this: fewer wells are being drilled. If fewer wells are being drilled, and the number of completed wells decreased, then the number of DUCs might also decrease, if that makes sense.

Wind in North Dakota? You betcha: there were fifteen days in April (and April has only 30 days to begin with) in which wind was too high (in excess of 35 mph) for fracking operations.

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Production Numbers

Crude oil production:

• April, 2016: 1,041,007 bopd
• March, 2016: 1,111,421 bopd
• Month-over-month change: a decrease of 6%.
• Comment: that's as big a decrease as I can remember.

Natural gas production:

• April, 2016: 1,616,950 mcf/day (all time high was last month)
• March, 2016: 1,710,823 mcf/day (all time high) 
• Wow, that took me by surprise

Producing wells:

• April: 13,050
• March: 13,052
• essentially no change