Thursday, August 20, 2020

Summertime Sadness: Drilled Wells, Completions: New Lows; DUCs: New Highs -- August 20, 2020

Re-posting.

A reader sent me a spreadsheet of the number of wells drilled, completed, and drilled/not completed (DUCs) on a monthly basis from December, 2013, through July, 2020, and including six oil and gas shale basins and one region in the continental US.

His analysis:

  • July, 2020 saw a new low for completions and wells drilled.

It was not feasible to post the entire spreadsheet of all six basins and one region on the blog, but I have produced the data for the two basins that interest me the most: the Bakken and the Permian. Note: in the spreadsheet below, the gap between the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2017. As usual, there may be typographical and/or content errors. If I find them, I will correct them later:


Permian

Permian

Permian

Bakken

Bakken

Bakken


Drilled

Completed

DUCs

Drilled 

Completed

DUCs

Dec 13



659



570

Jan 14

581

590

650

178

143

605

July 14

613

601

813

250

243

709

Dec 14

634

577

1042

226

207

728

Jan 17

352

259

1299

63

52

811

July 17

414

313

1711

96

103

765

Dec 17

474

382

2037

79

65

774

Jan 18

489

403

2123

107

72

809

Jul 18

568

512

2468

135

155

781

Dec 18

538

416

2951

109

70

793

Jan 19

585

469

3067

121

71

843

Jul 19

546

515

3500

117

124

869

Dec 19

449

453

3351

95

86

866

Jan 20

449

438

3362

100

86

880

July 20

138

98

3520

19

13

902

Comments:

  • DUCs in the Permian have surged between 2013 and 2020;
  • DUCs in the Bakken have remained fairly constant, in comparison, though roughly doubling since 2013;
  • part of this is due to the fact that the NDIC doubled the length of time, from one year to two years, that a well could "go" without being completed;
  • rates:
  • January, 2017: annual rate, drilled wells: 756; number of DUCs: 811: think about that; ratio, rounded: 1
  • July, 2020: annual rate, drilled wells: 240; number of DUCs; 902; ratio, rounded: 4
  • anecdotally, it appears that operators shut in 80% of Bakken wells in May and June, 2020; July, 2020, data not yet available;
  • natural gas production in the Bakken surges; the Bakken is not a natural gas play; occurred despite very, very little drilling and almost no completions;

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Summertime Sadness

Best social media line:  Lana del Rey should be a sexual orientation.

What a great visual of driving down the California coast. Hunter S. Thompson would have loved it.

Summertime Sadness, Lana Del Rey

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