ShaleProfile -- Update Through April, 2019

Link here.

The link will take you to a "commercial" site; lots of stuff behind a paywall, but the stuff that is free is worth reading.

I noted one particular item that caught my interest. It has to do with "well productivity."

Some direct quotes from the linked article:

In the comments section at the bottom of this post, I will comment on some recent articles that questioned whether well productivity is stalling in the Permian.

Oil production from horizontal wells in these states grew to close to 7 million bo/d in April (after upcoming revisions), setting a new record. That would represent a y-o-y growth of 1.3 million bo/d, but the rate at which production is increasing has slowed down since the end of last year.

Also here you can see that well productivity increased significantly over the years, and is still going up, although the rate of growth is going down. But what if you normalize for the lateral length, which has increased in almost all of the basins?

The current report is focused on the Permian. The author writes that it will post an update on the Bakken when the next Director's Cut is released next week.

Since about 2010, "all" Bakken wells are drilled with 9,000-foot horizontals, the "standard" Bakken long lateral, cutting through two sections (1280-acres). Horizontal lengths have not been standardized in the Permian based on what is reported at DrillingInfo.

I'm sure the folks at ShaleProfile will "normalize" something for the Bakken to make their point, but anecdotally I see ever-increasing productivity from Bakken wells. The same is seen at the EIA "dashboards":

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 welsl; 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 welsl; 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.