A Look At Bakken Production Data, Average Production Per Well Per Day -- January 11, 2020

At this NDIC site, click on historical monthly Bakken oil production statistics.

Monthly production data from Bakken oil wells in North Dakota.

There are seven columns.

For this post, I am looking at the last column, the seventh column: daily oil per well (average):

Observations:

• this is for newbies
• when the number is above "100" in the seventh column, it gets my attention
• the Bakken boom began in 2007 in North Dakota
• prior to the boom, the amount of oil per well (on average) was decreasing

The data, the spreadsheets:

• The data starts with December, 2005, the last spreadsheet below:
• at that time, average production from each well in the Bakken averaged on a daily basis: 20 bbls/day/well
• in July, 2007, at the beginning of the boom, the average production per well on a daily basis: 60 bbls/day/well
• by March, 2010, about the time the boom would have been at its height: 140 bbls/day/well
• Now, going to the third spreadsheet below:
• in April, 2010, daily production on average per well per day: 140 bbls/day/well
• four years later, by October, 2014, daily production on average per well per day, about the same in the big scheme of things: : 130 bbls/day/well
• Then, going to the second spreadsheet below:
• in November, 2014, daily production on average per well per day: we start at 130 bbls/day/well;
• five years later, by May, 2019, daily production on average per well per day: down to 102 bbls/day/well;
• Finally, the most recent date, the small spreadsheet directly below:
• June, 2019, daily production, on average, per well per day: 104 bbls/well/day
• most recent data available, October, 2019: 108 bbls/well/day
  

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The Data

Observations And Comments

It makes most sense to start with the bottom-most graphic and move back up toward the top to the most recent data.

Most recently, the last five months, June, 2019 - October, 2019:

• we've plateaued at just over 100 bbls/well/day
• the trend, if anything, is moving higher, but ever so subtle
• dragging down this number are the tens of thousands of old wells that are producing so little they would be identified as stripper wells and many are
• so, if one wants to get that last column higher, all things being equal, plug and abandon some of those older wells
• interestingly enough, older, low-production Bakken wells are not being plugged and abandoned
• so, what's happening? We'll talk about that in another post

November, 2014 - May, 2019:

• this is/was a critical period
• a lot of things were happening that folks conveniently forget about
• Art Berman, et al, were forecasting the beginning of the end for the Bakken 
• production metrics across the board were falling
• but technology was getting better; what was going on?
• the Saudi tried crushing the US shale sector
• the Saudi's "trillion-dollar mistake": the Saudi surge
• 2014 - 2016, which overhang into 2017
• even for me, it was a depressing and concerning couple of years 
• but then in 2017, the numbers started to turn
• by the end of 2018, surprising naysayers, and even surprising me, average production/well/day again went over 100 bbls/day/well, and was trending higher
• one has to remember that by this time there were tens of thousands of old Bakken wells that were in serious decline and dragging the average down
• and, yet, the daily production/well/day on average was increasing, back over 100 bbls/day/well by the end of this period;

April, 2010 - November, 2014:

• in 2011, or thereabouts, average production/well/day maxed out at about 150 bbls
• by the end of 2014, average production/well/day plateaued to about 130 bbls 
• we were in a steady state, and all things being equal, the average amount of production/well/day should begin declining ... and declining significantly based on the "dreaded Bakken decline"

December, 2005 - March, 2010 

• the boom did not begin until mid-2007
• by 2005, average production per well day day in the Bakken was down to 20 bbls/day/well
• how "big" was the boom?
• five years later, average production/well/day had gone up nearly 7x to 130 - 140 bbls/day/well