North Dakota Oil Production Increases By A Whopping 12% Month-Over-Month; Bismarck Tribune Says "Production Rises Slightly" -- October 17, 2020

As soon as the Director's Cut came out I immediately calculated the change month-over-month. I do that every month. I was absolutely amazed that not only did production increase month-over-month, but it increased by 12%. Did anyone see that coming? Looking at the daily reports and looking at production of wells of interest, I was pretty confident that oil production in the Bakken would increase month-over-month, but not confident enough to make that prediction. Interesting, I am not aware of anyone predicting an increase in production month-over-month in the Bakken.4

But a 12 percent increase month-over-month despite the headwinds. I was blown away. I checked the numbers several times, and it always came out the same. So I posted the note with the usual disclaimer that I often make simple arithmetic errors.

Later that day or the next day, this headline and story in the Bismarck Tribune:

Rises "slightly"? Say what? I went back and checked the numbers. I was still showing 12%. Note that the Bismarck Tribune doesn't show the percent change month-over-month (which, by the way, speaks volumes, but that's another story for another time). I was so concerned that my numbers were off I almost "pulled" my "12%" figure from the blog.

But then, later that evening, Reuters said the month-over-month increase was 12%. Whew. 

Since April, 2010, there have been thirteen occasions in which ND oil production increased by 5.29% or more, month-over-month.

Since April, 2010, there have been five occasions in which ND oil production increased by 7.00% or more, month-over-month. 

Since April, 2010, more than ten years ago, there have been only three occasions in which ND oil production increased by 10.00% or more, month-after-month:

• production increased by 10.39% in July, 2011, month-after month;
• production increased by 11.74% month-over-month, in the most recent report, for August, 2020, data; and, finally, only for a third time did production increase more than 10% month-over-month, and that was "last" month, 
• data for July, 2020, when an all-time record was set (at least since April, 2010) when production increased by a whopping 16.6% month-over-month.

For the complete spreadsheet, see this post. 

The usual disclaimer applies.

Maybe the Bismarck Tribune will provide a bit of analysis of the Bakken in tomorrow's paper. 

Oh, that's right. The Tribune no longer publishes a Sunday edition.