Bakken – Page 30 – Peak Oil Barrel

Bakken Update, Big Drop in December

02/14/201402/14/2014 Ron Patterson 118 Comments

North Dakota has published the latest production numbers.
ND Monthly Oil Production Statistics (All North Dakota)
ND Monthly Bakken* Oil Production Statistics (Bakken Only)

Bakken production fell 48,395 bp/d to 862,389 bp/d and all North Dakota production fell 53,226 bp/d to 923,227 bp/d. That was after Bakken November production had been revised up by 2,908 bp/d and North Dakota November production was revised up by 3,173 bp/d.

From the Director’s Cut

<i>The drilling rig count was up from Nov to Dec, but the number of well completions dropped from 138 to 119. Days from spud to initial production increased 18 days to 132. Investor confidence appears to be growing, but there is still some concerns about the uncertainty surrounding federal policies on taxation and hydraulic fracturing regulation, but the big story is the December weather. Low temperatures of 21 to 31 degrees below zero, 4 major snow events, and 5 major wind events. Dickinson had the 4th coldest December on record and from Williston to Bismarck it was the 9th snowiest December since 1890.</i>

The December decline in North Dakota production was the highest in the history of the state. Total North Dakota increased production in 2012 by 233,349 barrels per day. However the increase in 2013 was only 154,317 bp/d. Their production increase was 34 percent less in 2013 than it was in 2012.
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North Dakota Bakken/Three Forks Scenarios

02/07/201411/14/2019 D Coyne 226 Comments

blog1402fig1/

Figure 1

Edit(2/10/2014) For anyone interested a spreadsheet with the TRR scenario can be downloaded here just click on down arrow near the upper left to download spreadsheet.

A recent post at Peak Oil Barrel by Jean Laherrere suggested an ultimate recoverable resource(URR) for the North Dakota Bakken/Three Forks of about 2.5 Gb based on Hubbert Linearization. This conflicts with a recent (April 2013) USGS mean (F50) TRR estimate of 8.4 Gb. (See my earlier blog post.)

I decided to update my scenarios based on the range of USGS TRR estimates from F95=6 Gb to F5=11.3 Gb for the North Dakota(ND) Bakken/ Three Forks. Note that at year end 2011 there were 2.6 Gb of crude proven reserves in ND and at the end of 2007 about 0.5 Gb, I will assume all of this reserve increase came from the Bakken/ Three Forks, so 2.1 Gb of proven reserves added to 0.35 Gb of oil produced from the Bakken/ Three Forks gives us 2.45 Gb for a minimum URR. The Hubbert Linearization points to about 0.05 Gb of undiscovered oil whereas the USGS suggests 3.5 to 8.9 Gb of undiscovered technically recoverable resource(TRR) in the North Dakota Bakken/Three Forks.

Note that Mr. Laherrere has forgotten more about geology than I know. He may have information that I don’t have access to or has read the USGS April 2013 Bakken/Three Forks assessment and found that the report was not credible. I have assumed in my analysis that the USGS analysis is correct, if it is not then my analysis will also be flawed. I would love to hear from Mr. Laherrere about the specific problems he sees with the USGS analysis, I no doubt would learn much.

Oil peak in North Dakota & Montana

01/26/201401/26/2014 Ron Patterson 94 Comments

This is a guest post from Jean Laherrere. There are 12 graphs in this post. I have added a “continue reading” break in this post after the first three. I will do this for all long posts.

US Crude Storage, Production and Other Peak Oil News

01/23/201401/30/2014 Ron Patterson 83 Comments

There has been a dearth of oil production data lately so I have been scratching to find something to post. So I have gathered this and that in hopes of making it interesting.

US stocks had the first uptick in nine weeks, gaining 990 kb. (See the slight uptick in the blue line.) But they still stand at their lowest point in 21 months.

Incidentally the EIA’s Weekly Petroleum Status Report had US crude oil production down last week. Their estimate of production went from 8,159 kb/d to 8,052 kb/d. That was the first decline in nine weeks. Of course that is really just a guess by the EIA.

Based on the weekly US production data I have charted US production through Januay 2014. The data through November 2013 is from the EIA’s Monthly Energy Review. The data for December and January is from the Weekly Petroleum Status Report, link above. That data is through January 17th. I have estimated the rest of the month.

Update: North Dakota Bakken Data

01/14/201401/30/2014 Ron Patterson 39 Comments

North Dakota published their monthly report on Bakken Production and All North Dakota Prouction. Nothing to get excited about. Bakken production was up 28,285 barrels per day while all north Dakota was up 27,864 barrels per day. This means that North Dakota production outside the Bakken was down 421 bp/d.

The Director’s Cut comments on the price they are getting for Bakken Oil:

Oct Sweet Crude Price = $85.16/barrel
Nov Sweet Crude Price = $71.42/barrel
Dec Sweet Crude Price = $73.47/barrel
Today Sweet Crude Price = $71.25/barrel (all-time high was $136.29 7/3/2008)

Interesting that they are selling their oil at about a $21 discount to WTI about a $35 discount to Brent. More of the Director’s comments:

The drilling rig count was unchanged from Oct to Nov, but the number of well
completions dropped from 166 to 138. Days from spud to initial production remained
steady at 114. Investors remain concerned about the uncertainty surrounding federal
policies on taxation and hydraulic fracturing regulation.

We estimate that at the end of Nov there were about 510 wells waiting on completion
services, an increase of 50.

This plot is “Bakken Additional Wells” and the 12 month trailing average. As you can see the average for the last 15 months or so has been pretty flat, around 150 additional wells per month.