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