Bakken Daily Oil Per Well -- Random Update -- October 12, 2019

Disclaimer: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken. I often see things that do not exist in the real world. I often misread stuff. There will be factual and typographical errors in all my posts. If I find them, I correct them. If any of this is important to you, go to the source.

Note: there's a big difference between what physically happens in the oil patch and what happens on Wall Street. I would never make a recommendation about investing. I track Wall Street "stuff" to help put the Bakken in perspective, and more importantly, keep me from getting bored. Having said that, I would say this: there are a lot better places to invest than in US oil. LOL.

This was taken from the second half of this post. This is so interesting, I'm going to re-post the second half of that post:

EIA dashboards:

• EIA pdf, Bakken: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/bakken.pdf
• EIA, pdf, Permian: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/permian.pdf
• EIA, pdf, Eagle Ford: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/eagleford.pdf

Wow, wow, wow. I haven't looked at this in a long, long time. This is incredible.

To get to the spreadsheet:

• go to this link: https://www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/stats/statisticsvw.asp.
• at that link, click on "Historical monthly Bakken oil production statistics" -- about the 8th bulleted item under the first major heading; a pdf will download

This is huge.

I followed this data for years, posting updates every so often. And then about two years ago I quit tracking it for various reasons. Mostly because I wasn't interested in the data any more; I understood what was going on. Remember, the purpose of the blog is to help me understand the Bakken; it's not about capturing all the Bakken data or archiving it all. Once I understand something about the Bakken, I often lose interest.

But look at this: during the boom, in the early days of the Bakken and continuing into 2013, on a "daily oil per well" basis, the wells were setting records, as high as 140 bbls/day/well across the entire Bakken (including all the old wells and the dreaded Bakken decline rate).

Then starting in early 2016, "daily oil per well" dropped below 100 bbls/day and gradually leveled off at about 90 bbls/day. I assumed it would go lower and lower as older Bakken wells grew older and older.

Had the "daily oil per well" continued to drop we would have seen any number of "negative" stories about the Bakken. I would have become depressed.

But out of curiosity, after seeing the ShaleProfile report today, I was curious. What does the "Bakken daily oil per well" show?

Wow, wow, wow. The Bakken is back above 100 bbls/day per well.

That's huge. Folks don't realize this. This was not supposed to happen.

Almost no Bakken wells are abandoned. There are thousands of Bakken stripper wells; thousands of Bakken wells that are producing less than 500 bbls/month -- that's less than 20 bbls/day/well. It would seem impossible for the few wells that start production each month to "offset" these old, old, old wells.

One would expect the overall Bakken daily oil per well to keep falling. But to see the number turn the corner (from 94) and bounce back to 104 is, to say the least, quite incredible.

Anecdotally, I've noticed how incredible the wells are -- MRO, CLR, WLL, WPX -- incredible  work but I never expected this:

When did we last see numbers above 100 bbls/well/day? Back in 2015. Four years ago.

Peak oil? What peak oil?

Hubbert.

And the wells are costing much less now (2019) than they did in 2015.

One last thing. Up above I wrote:

Almost no Bakken wells are abandoned. There are thousands of Bakken stripper wells; thousands of Bakken wells that are producing less than 500 bbls/month -- that's less than 20 bbls/day/well. It would seem impossible for the few wells that start production each month to "offset" these old, old, old wells.

Know what else is interesting?

The old, old, old Bakken wells don't get worse, and worse, and worse. Most of them level off / plateau off at 300 to 500 bbls/month. (Meanwhile, the new wells simply get better and better).

But some of the old, old, old Bakken wells jump in production (halo effect; parent-child uplift).

My hunch is that "Bakken daily oil per well" will be fodder for Bakken naysayers, but I'm not sure. This could be quite interesting.

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Sophia Visiting Corky's Relatives

This is actually quite funny. There is "Calvin and Hobbes" and there is Sophia and Corky.

Yesterday, Sophia and I stopped by the local farm that opens its gates to urban folks for the entire month of October. One of the highlights: the animals -- cows, donkeys, pigs, llamas, sheep, goats, roosters, chickens.

One of the bigger delights are the those little miniature pigs.

Later, while enjoying some kettle popcorn, sitting at the picnic tables, I mentioned to Sophia that it was nice for Corky to get to see her relatives.

And swear to God, I'm not making this up. Sophia seemed downright sad when she said, "I thought [her relatives] were all dead."

Sophia was not sad that Corky was able to see her relatives. I think Sophia was sad because she (Sophia) had erroneously told Corky that her (Corky's) relatives were all dead. And now Sophia was depressed that Corky might think that she (Sophia) had lied to her. Sophia did not mean any harm; she really thought that Corky's relatives were dead.

Corky's relatives, according to Sophia, were from Colorado, but had moved to Wisconsin (or maybe, it was Michigan, I forget). But after that move, Sophia lost track of Corky's relatives. She thought maybe they had moved to Hawaii, which, of course, would explain the demise of Corky's relatives -- the Hawaiians love pork barbecue. 

[Note: it did not help matters that my wife -- Sophia's grandmother -- thought the same, that all of Corky's relatives were dead -- after all, she sees Corky's relatives every week at Albertson's, Kroger's, Tom Thumb. And not in a "good way."]