North Dakota Oil Production -- Annual -- 2019 - 2023 -- Returning To A Reader's Question Of Some Weeks Ago

Locator: 46883B.

Link here. From NDIC data here.

Full year, oil production:

• 2019: 524,430,647 bbls crude oil
  
• 2020: 438,683,034
  
• 2021: 409, 104,098
  
• 2022: 390,326,798
  
• 2023: 435,013,847
  

Average amount of oil per well per day:

• 2019: 93.17 bbls crude oil per day per well
  
• 2020: 81.09
  
• 2021: 68.75
  
• 2022: 63.33
  
• 2023: 67.33

Number of producing wells, at the end of the year:

• 2019: 15,656
  
• 2020: 15,384
  
• 2021: 16,829
  
• 2022: 16,874
  
• 2023: 18,365
  

Best year of the five years:

• 2019: 524,430,647 bbls for the year

2022 was atrocious, averaging 1,069,388 bopd:

2023, last year, averaging 1,191,819 bopd, an 11% increase over 2022.

Several weeks ago a reader asked what explains the jump in production year-over-year.

That's really two questions:

• why did production increase year-over-year; and,
• how did operators manage to increase production year-over-year in the Bakken.

So, to answer the first question, the "why." It's all about managing assets, something we've discussed before.

Second, "production follows price."

So, now the how? All things being equal, how did operators increase production? Two parts to the answer to that question:

• first, they only had to open the choke (open the spigots) and hope takeaway capacity was there (it was); and,
• second, to keep the open spigots flowing at an increased rate:
• hope for good weather, so drilling and fracking could proceed, based on the operator's schedule; 

But what was the secret sauce?

• complete the DUCs.

Let's check that out.

Assumption:

• the number of active rigs has not changed: and that's true, running between 36 and 39 rigs for quite some time;
• the weather held, for the most part, and the drilling stayed on schedule; and,
• finally, the operators started completing DUCs.

Check this post.

DUC inventory:

• December, 2020:   811
• December, 2021:   555
• December, 2022:   602
• December, 2023:   324

There seems to be a trend.

By the way, 800 DUC-inventory has been the norm for years in the Bakken, so even a drop to 555 was noteworthy, but look at that "324."

That leads to the next question ... what makes the Bakken so special to be able to frack so fast .. but for another time ...

There are a number of other Bakken-specific reasons for increased production but that's enough for now.

But the real shout-out goes to the blue-collar workers in their Carhartt Clothes: the truckers; the roughnecks.