Monday, November 16, 2020

When It Comes To Tabulating DUCs, There Seems To Be A Disconnect Between What Writers Write And What The Data Shows -- November 16, 2020

A reader provided a spreadsheet of all the major shale plays in the US with the number of drilled wells, completed wells, and DUCs.

The reader tells us how to access this data (see first comment):

The historical DUC spreadsheet from the EIA is linked on the sidebar of the monthly drilling productivity report, with the Excel file titled "DUC data (aggregated by region)"
https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/

He noted the same issue I've noted. The data itself does not reflect what is being reported. 

He noted this:

I keep seeing these reports like the oilprice one from last month we discussed.

Oil operators get DUCs in a row, adding fracking crews to boost output - US frackers are bringing back equipment even as oil prices languish around $40 a barrel in a bid to boost production and tap into a backlog of drilled wells left uncompleted (DUCs) when oil prices crashed earlier this year.The number of active hydraulic fracturing fleets has climbed by nearly 50% since mid-September to 127, according to data from consultancy Primary Vision, outpacing a roughly 17% jump in the number of active drilling rigs over that same period of time.

Do these people know something the EIA doesn't, or is it all just based on scuttlebutt?
I posted the data below for the Bakken. There was just too much to post for all major US shale plays but it was all similar. We're not seeing DUCs being completed any faster now than they were being completed in the past. 
 
In fact, for the Bakken, the number of DUCs are fairly stable, if anything increasing, rather than decreasing as some would suggest.  The reader supplied data for all months in the years noted below. I only provided the January / December in each of the years. Note the gap between 2014 and 2017. 

I have tracked North Dakota DUCs since May, 2016, and that data is posted at this site.

Bakken

Drilled

Completed 

DUCs

Jan 14

178

143

605

Dec 14

226

194

737

Jan 17

63

52

811

Dec 17

78

65

773

Jan 18

107

72

808

Dec 18

109

70

792

Jan 19

121

71

842

Dec 19

95

86

884

Jan 20

100

94

890

Mar 20

95

106

876

Jul 20

18

25

891

Oct 20

19

32

851

***************************
Here's The Permian Data
Spoiler Alert: Same Story

Permian

Drilled

Completed

DUCs

Jan 14

581

590

650

Dec 14

634

577

1041

Jan 17

352

259

1297

Dec 17

473

382

2034

Jan 18

487

403

2118

Dec 18

537

416

2937

Jan 19

585

476

3046

Dec 19

449

453

3417

Jan 20

449

438

3428

Mar 20

462

442

3470

Jul 20

149

101

3586

Oct 20

141

156

3565

4 comments:

  1. the historical DUC spreadsheet from the EIA is linked on the sidebar of the monthly drilling productivity report, with the Excel file titled "DUC data (aggregated by region)"
    https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, much appreciated. I will add this to the main body of the blog for easier browser access.

      Delete
  2. Ducks are notoriously tricky data. Frack focus has huge lags. Satellite data is better, like from rystad. Ndic has very bad data. Eia is better but a lot of modeling. Not actual. It's just a mess.

    Rystad had a good webinar. Overall docs are being drawn down through about now. Maybe stable soon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can only speak for the Bakken. Two comments:

      FracFocus provides data up to six months ahead of NDIC, but yes, FracFocus would not be in "real time." FracFocus depends on operators providing data which can be delayed.

      So, let's say the frack data is six months old. The data still suggests DUCs are not coming down very quickly. We can come back to this story in six months and see if DUCs are down appreciably.

      Delete