Reposting The Bloomberg Article: The Bakken Is "Roaring" Back -- February 3, 2018

I posted the link to this article at Bloomberg earlier this week, but there is a paywall. Today, the article is available over at miningweekly:

The Bakken shale is roaring back to life, and Kevin Black sees the evidence almost every day as he looks out the window of his blue Ford F-150 pickup truck.

The president of Creedence Energy Services, which provides chemicals for oil wells, Black, 29, drives about two hours to Williston, North Dakota, at the heart of the oil-rich formation, most days. After a three-year slump in Bakken shale-oil production, he says the resurgence is unmistakable in the influx of new industrial vehicles on the road.

Bakken output is set to exceed the December 2014 record of 1.23 -million barrels a day in the first half of 2018, Lynn Helms, director of the North Dakota Mineral Resources Department, said January 16. It sank to 942 000 bbl/d in December 2016, before rebounding last year.

“We are optimistic,” Helms said. “Everything points to more rigs, more frack crews, more activity in North Dakota.”

New technology has made the Bakken increasingly competitive, with wells that used to take as long as 80 days to drill now done in as few as 10, said Kathleen Neset, founder of Neset Consulting Services in Tioga, North Dakota, which staffs drilling sites with geologists.

The start of Energy Transfer Partners’s controversial Dakota Access Pipeline in June after months of protests by Native American tribes has made it easier to get oil to refineries. Bakken crude at Guernsey, Wyoming, was at a 70-cent premium to West Texas Intermediate futures Wednesday, up from a $1.85-a-barrel discount in April, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The outright price was $66.74 January 26, the most in data since 2015.

Much more at the link.