North Dakota – update through September 2021

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 16,771 horizontal wells in North Dakota that started production from 2001 onward, through September.

Total production

Oil production in North Dakota from horizontal wells was flat m-o-m, at 1.07 million b/d in September. Output fell by 120 thousand b/d in the 12-month period through September, or 10%. But drilling activity has picked up, and we estimate that with the 23 rigs that are drilling horizontal wells in the state (according to Baker Hughes), current output can be maintained for a while.

Supply projection

We can see this easily in our Supply Projection dashboard:

The top chart displays the horizontal rig count over time, while the bottom chart plots the total oil production from existing and future horizontal wells. It reveals that at the current pace, an output of just over 1 million b/d can be maintained. The bump in production in Q4 2021 is caused by the recently high number of well completions, which has caused the DUC inventory to decline.

Well productivity

In this post I wanted to share how well productivity of the largest 3 producers has changed over time. Here you can see the performance of the wells operated by Continental Resources, Hess and Marathon, each producing above 100 thousand b/d in the state:

In the top-right chart, the average well performance of these 3 operators is displayed, as measured by the cumulative oil production in the first 12 months, by completion date. Note how Marathon’s well results have improved in the 5 years through 2020, to about 300 thousand barrels of oil in the first year, on average.

Top operators

The final tab shows the production history and location of the top 15 operators in North Dakota. Continental Resources is still in the lead with 150 thousand b/d, but Marathon jumped ahead of Hess, due to its better well performance.

Finally

Early next week we will have a new post on the Permian, for which we already have production data through September for most wells.

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 individual 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 by “operator (current)”. The operator who operated a well in a past month is designated by “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.

Enno Peters

Enno Peters is General Manager at Novi, where he has build an AI-driven data & analytics platform tailored for oil & gas operators and energy investors. Prior to Novi, Enno founded ShaleProfile which was acquired by Novi late 2021.