North Dakota – update through December 2022

This is an older blog post, you will find one on more recent data here

These interactive presentations contain the latest oil & gas production data from all 17,775 horizontal wells in North Dakota that started production from 2001 onward, through December.

Total production

Oil production in North Dakota from horizontal wells fell by 13% m-o-m in December, to 0.92 million b/d, while natural gas output fell by a similar amount to 2.6 Bcf/d. The main reason behind this drop was harsh winter weather. During 2022, 696 horizontal wells came on production, compared with 600 in 2020 and 663 in 2021.

Drilling Activity

Drilling activity has quadrupled from the lows in 2020, and as of last week 41 rigs were drilling horizontal wells (according to Baker Hughes):

Well productivity

Average well productivity, as measured by the cumulative oil production during the first 6 months, has stagnated since 2019. However, within the 4 core counties of the Bakken there is some variation, as we can see in the following chart:

Note that well performance has fallen in Mountrail during the last 2 years, while Dunn has made some surprising gains and is now the county with the best results, at least on the chosen metric. The 71 horizontal wells that came online in the first 6 months in Dunn county have on average produced 132 thousand barrels of oil during their first 6 months online.

Water production

Older wells produce more water than younger wells, relative to hydrocarbon production. The following chart shows the amount of oil and water produced in North Dakota, from all horizontal wells that began production since 2007:

At the end of 2022, the 17,200 horizontal wells that began producing since 2007 produced 1.5 barrel of water for each barrel of oil produced.

Top operators

In the final tab of the interactive presentation at the top (“Top operators”), you can find the top 15 operators in North Dakota, based on recent oil production. Continental Resources and Chord Energy (formed from the merger of Whiting and Oasis) are well ahead of their peers. EOG, at one time the largest producer, has fallen to the 14th spot.

Finally

In two weeks we’ll be back with another basin update. Let us know in the comments section if you are interested in a particular basin; the most votes win!

Sources

For these presentations, I used data gathered from the following sources:

• DMR of North Dakota. These presentations only show the production from horizontal wells; a small amount (about 40 kbo/d) is produced from conventional vertical wells.
• FracFocus.org

Brief manual

The above presentations have many interactive features:

• You can click through the blocks on the top to see the slides.
• Each slide has filters that can be set, e.g. to select individuals or groups of operators. You can first click “all” to deselect all items. You have to click the “apply” button at the bottom to enforce the changes. After that, click anywhere on the presentation.
• Tooltips are shown by just hovering the mouse over parts of the presentation.
• You can move the map around, and zoom in/out.
• By clicking on the legend you can highlight selected items.
• Note that filters have to be set for each tab separately.
• The operator who currently owns the well is designated as “operator (current)”. The operator who operated a well in the past month is designated as “operator (actual)”. This distinction is useful when the ownership of a well changed over time.
• If you have any questions on how to use the interactivity, or how to analyze specific questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Key Takeaways

• North Dakota horizontal-well oil production fell 13% m-o-m in December to 0.92 million b/d due to harsh winter weather.
• North Dakota horizontal-well natural gas output fell by a similar amount in December to 2.6 Bcf/d.
• 696 horizontal wells started production during 2022, compared with 600 in 2020 and 663 in 2021.
• As of last week, 41 rigs were drilling horizontal wells in North Dakota, according to Baker Hughes.
• Average well productivity, measured by cumulative oil production during the first 6 months, has stagnated since 2019.
• Dunn County led the four core Bakken counties, with 71 wells averaging 132 thousand barrels of oil in their first 6 months.
• At end-2022, 17,200 horizontal wells that began producing since 2007 produced 1.5 barrels of water per barrel of oil.
• Continental Resources and Chord Energy were the top recent oil producers in North Dakota, while EOG ranked 14th.