A Metric No One Else Tracks -- January 23, 2023

Permitting Per Year and Total Annual Production

Data for 2022: total annual production is accurate only through November, 2022; December data is yet to be provided but total annual production is estimated below.

The number of permits will not be completely accurate; close but not completely accurate, partly because of the way NDIC started a new procedure for numbering permits for SWD wells that was changed sometime in the past several years.

Starting in the mid- to late-teens, NDIC changed the maximum time that a spudded well could be completed without requiring a waiver; it went from one year to two years.

Once permitted, a well must be spud within a year, but it is inexpensive and easy to renew a permit on an annual basis.

The "initial" lease in North Dakota "is good for" five years. If the first well is not spud within five years of the lease being, the lease becomes null and voidl

Disclaimer: this is my shorthand (above) to remind me of some important dates / rules. They are not "exact." If this "stuff" is important to you, go to the source. In addition, there may be additional typographical and content errors.  

Past years, total number of oil and gas permits, followed by annual crude oil production -- and then production that year / permits issued that year. Permits do not mean the wells were drilled. In fact, the majority of wells drilled in any given year were permitted at least a year earlier.

• 2022: 793 --    393,520,643 bbls (estimate) --  496,243 bbls / new permit (estimate);
  
• 2021: 668 --    409,103,885 bbls -- 612,431 bbls / new permit;
  
• 2020: 747 --    438,546,730 bbls -- 587,077 bbls / new permit
  
• 2019: 1,397 -- 524,444,348 bbls -- 375,408 bbls / new permit;
  
• 2018: 1,466 -- 466,419,743 bbls -- 318,158 bbls / new permit;
• 2017: 1,189 -- 394,759,760 bbls -- 332,010 bbls / new permit;
• 2016: 818 --    380,372,587 bbls -- 465,003 bbls / new permit;
• 2015: 2,055 -- 432,526,847 bbls -- 210,475 bbls / new permit;
• 2014: 3,012 -- 397,209,473 bbls -- 131,875 bbls / new permit;
• 2013: 2,671 -- 314,043,664 bbls -- 117,575 bbls / new permit;
• 2012: 2,522 -- 243,363,503 bbls -- 96,496 bbls / new permit;
• 2011:1,916  -- 153,075,204 bbls -- 79,893 bbls / new permit;