Data for the OPEC charts below are from the OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report. All OPEC data are through August 2018 and in thousand barrels per day.
OPEC 15 crude only production was up 278,000 barrels per day in August to 32,565,000 bpd. Most of that increase was Libya, up 256,000 bpd.
July OPEC production was revised down 38,000 barrels per day.
These first charts are taken from the EIA’s Monthly Crude Oil and Natural Gas Production. The data are through June 2018 and is in thousand barrels per day.
US C+C production was up 231,000 barrels per day in June to 10,674,000 bpd, an all-time high.
Texas was up 165,000 barrels per day in June to 4,410,000 bpd.
Baker Hughes publishes a weekly oil and gas rig count by producing basin. I have created charts of all the most productive basins in order that we can see where oil and gas rigs are increasing or decreasing. Their historic rig count, by basin, goes back 4 years.
It needs to be noted that Baker Hugs does not count rigs that are not actively drilling. Rigs that are “Moving In, Rigging Up” are not counted in the Baker Hughes count though they are counted by some others including the North Dakota Industrial Commission.
All rig counts are of Friday, February 27, 2015.
But first, total US weekly rig count. The oil rig count stands at 986, down 623 from a high of 1,609 in October. The gas rig count stands at 280, down 656 rigs from the high of 935 in October of 2011. However this data base goes back only 4 years. The all time high for gas rigs was 1,606 in September of 2008. The 1,609 oil rig count in October 2014 was an all time high for oil rigs. That record is valid only back to the days when Baker Hughes began separate stats for oil and gas rigs however.
Eagle Ford oil rigs currently stand at 136, down from a high 214 in April 2014. Gas rig count is 21, down from 95 in October 2011.
There has been considerable dispute over how many new wells required to keep production flat in the Bakken and Eagle Ford. One college professor posted, over on Seeking Alpha, figures that it would take 114 rigs in the Bakken and 175 in Eagle Ford to keep production flat. He bases his analysis on David Hughes’ estimate that the legacy decline rate fir Bakken wells is 45% and 35% for Eagle Ford wells. And he says a rig can drill 18 wells a year, or about one well every 20.3 days.
The EIA has comes up with different numbers. The data for the chart below was taken from the EIA’s Drilling Productivity Report.
The EIA has current legacy decline at about 6.3% per month for Bakken wells and about 7.7% per month for Eagle Ford wells. That works out to be about 54% per year for the Bakken and 62% per year for Eagle Ford. I believe the EIA’s estimate of legacy decline, in this case, is fairly accurate. For instance last month Mountrail County had over 30 new wells completed yet still declined by 6.4%. And in December 2013 North Dakota declined by 5.22% yet had 119 new well completions.
I have examined the last sixteen Directr’s Cuts and gleaned, I think, some important data… I think.
Rig count has averaged 189 rigs per mnth and has been fairly steady while new well completions has averaged 172 wells per month but has been highly erratic.
New well completions depends far more on weather and fracking crews than rigs. In October there was 650 wells awaiting fracking crews. At 172 wells per month that is almost a four months supply. And that is also what the average spud to completion is, 120 days.
The EIA just released their Petroleum Supply Monthly where they give their estimates of US crude production as well as the crude production for all states and territories through August 2014.
There was not much movement from anyone in August. Here are the biggest movers:
Change
Total USA 61 kbd
Texas 46 kbd
GOM 21 kbd
North Dakota 18 kbd
Oklahoma -6 kbd
Colorado -9 kbd
Alaska -24 kbd
The data is in kbd with the last data point August 2014.
I have started the data in January 2009 in order to get a better picture of what is really happening.
The above chart is the combined production of both GOM and Pacific offshore.
The EIA is predicting Offshore production to reach 2 million barrels per day by 2016, I really don’t think it is going to make it. They are counting on a lot of new offshore fields that are coming on line to bring it up to that level. While that is happening, what they have underestimated is the very high decline rate of these deep water fields.
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