North Dakota Sets Record For Number Of Non-Producing Wells -- May 24, 2019

Updates

May 25, 2019: It looks like others have also noted the impact of "inactive wells" and DUCs.

The original post (down below) was for Bakken data. Within hours of posting the Bakken data, the Permian data was also posted.

There are a number of take-aways from this data, most those related to the Red Queen.  Also, factoring into this is "breakeven prices" and that research.

From twitter yesterday:

Original Post

I could be wrong but I bet I'm correct, or very, very close.

Note: this does not include wells that have been plugged and abandoned since 1951. These are "current" wells that have not yet been plugged/abandoned. These wells are identified in scout tickets as IA (inactive) or SI/NC (DUCs).

Link here for the data.

It appears that "we"  have set a new record in the number of DUCs for most recent data available, March, 2019: 968. I believe the previous record was 959.

March, 2019:

• DUCs: 968, up 74 from last report
• inactive: 1,697, up 30 from last report
• total: 2,665 (up from 2,561 last week; this represents about 1,000 more wells than will be drilled this calendar year; 2,561 is about what North Dakota will complete every three years)

The number of inactive wells may be at an all-time high or very near an all-time high. When I first started tracking this data I suggested that the number of inactive wells never exceeded 1,700. In March, 2019, there were 1,697 inactive wells.

For newbies: there are three main "groups" of inactive wells:

• the largest group of inactive wells are wells taking offline for operational reasons, and will come back on line in a few months
• there are a few wells that are placed on inactive status on the way to plugging and abandoning
• the smallest group of inactive wells are wells that in purgatory: these are wells that the operator is trying to figure out what to do with them;  

Taken together, DUCs and inactive wells, I do believe we have a new record. Combining DUCs and inactive wells, I think we have a new all-time record of 2,665 wells.

It looks like about 300 wells will come off the confidential list [on average] every quarter this year, suggesting about 1,200 wells will come off the confidential list for the entire year of 2019.

Data:

• 1Q19: 346 wells came off the confidential list;
• 4Q18: 228 wells
• 3Q18: 190 wells
• 2Q18: 263 wells
• 1Q18: 242 wells
• Total for CY2018: 923 wells

Disclaimer: I often make simple errors in arithmetic. My numbers will not agree with the official data provided by the NDIC. There could be any number of reasons for the difference. But, in the big scheme of things, I bet my numbers are pretty close.