Uncategorized – Page 131 – Peak Oil Barrel

Are Mountrail’s Sweet Spots Past Their Prime?

01/17/201501/17/2015 Ron Patterson 288 Comments

This is a Guest Post by Rune Likvern Fractional Flow

This post is an update on total Light Tight Oil (LTO) extraction from Bakken in North Dakota based upon actual data as of October 2014 from North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC). It further presents a statistical analysis on developments of well productivity with a detailed look at developments in Parshall, Reunion Bay and Sanish.

There were general improvements in LTO well productivity in Bakken during 2013.
Present trends in LTO well productivity for Mountrail’s sweet spots (Alger, Parshall, Reunion Bay, Sanish and Van Hook) suggests these are past their prime.
Figure 29 in this post show development in well productivity for Alger and Van Hook and figures 06, 08 and 10 for Parshall, Reunion Bay and Sanish. A common feature for Parshall, Reunion Bay, Sanish, and Van Hook is that these reached new highs in well productivity for wells started in 2013.
Alger has been in general decline since 2011.
LTO extraction in recent years may be viewed as a source for global swing production for oil.

NOTE: Actual data used for this analysis are all from North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC). Data are incomplete for around 2% of the wells.

For wells on confidential list, data on runs were used as proxies for extraction.

Production data for Bakken, North Dakota: Monthly Production Report Index

Formation data from: Bakken Horizontal Wells By Producing Zone

The important messages from this analysis are the trends in well productivity.

This post is an update and expansion of my post “Will the Bakken “Red Queen” Have to Run Faster?” from the summer of 2013 and may be read as a continuation of my post “Will the Bakken Red Queen Outrun Growth in Water Cut?”.

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Bakken LTO Production, November Data

01/14/201501/16/2015 Ron Patterson 340 Comments

The North Dakota Industrial Commission is out with the Bakken November Production Data and the North Dakota Production Data.

Bakken production was up 5,293 BP/D while total North Dakota was up 3,691 BP/D. Total North Dakota oil production is up 901 barrels per day from two months ago, October production.

Total wells producing was up by 110 in the Bakken but only up by 63 in North Dakota. That means a lot of conventional wells were shut down.

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Short-Term Energy Outlook 2015 and 2016

01/13/201501/13/2015 Ron Patterson 153 Comments

The EIA has just released their Short-Term Energy Outlook for January. They have now included their predictions for 2016. Here is what they expect for US C+C. I have made the first projected production for December 2014 though the EIA says they have production data for December. All date is in million barrels per day through December 2016.

The EIA is saying that US C+C will peak at 9.47 mb/d in May 2015, drop 330,000 barrels per day by September 2015 then recovers, apparently because the price of oil goes back. Or perhaps they have another reason. They do not have US production surpassing May 2015 until July of 2016.

The EIA only gives C+C outlook numbers for domestic production. However they do project total liquids for all Non-OPEC nations. But first here is what they are predicting for US total liquids:

The EIA has US total liquids hitting a plateau in July 2015 then heading up again in April 2016 and increasing by 1 million barrels per day during the remainder of the year.

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What Will 2015 do for Peak Oil?

01/09/201501/10/2015 Ron Patterson 609 Comments

The Cornucopians are exuberant, they believe that collapsing of oil prices dealt the death knell for peak oil. An oil glut, they say, is what we have, not peak oil. But an oil glut is exactly what we would expect at the very peak. After all, that is what peak oil is, that is the the point in time when the world produces more oil than ever in history… and the most it ever will produce.

I am of the firm conviction that the world is at the peak of world oil production right now, or was at that point three or four months ago. I think history will show that the 12 months of September 2014 through August 2015 will be the one year peak. Whether the calendar year peak is 2014 or 2015 is the only thing still in question, or that is my opinion anyway.

The EIA says, in their Short Term Energy Outlook says US Crude oil will peak, at least temporarily, in May 2015.

Looking at the area breakdown for total US production:

This chart includes net US crude oil imports. Notice how they expect crude oil imports to bottom out in February of 2015 at 5.78 mbd then increase to 6.71 mbd in August before declining to 5.82 mbd in December.

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Bakken, Let’s Do The Math

01/05/201501/05/2015 Ron Patterson 612 Comments

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.

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