Permian – update through January 2021

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

This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data from all 30,048 horizontal wells in the Permian (Texas & New Mexico) that started producing from 2008/2009 onward, through January.

Total Production

Since June last year, Permian tight oil production has hovered at a level close to 3.8 million bo/d (after upcoming revisions, hz. wells only). Natural gas production is at record heights (>15 Bcf/d).

In the next update on this basin, we should learn exactly how much output was impacted by the harsh weather in February.

Supply Projection

Since our post on this basin last month, 17 more rigs were added to drill horizontal wells (to 215 as of last week according to Baker Hughes). With this level of activity, output in the basin should soon start rising again:

This screenshot was taken from our Supply Projection dashboard.

This makes the Permian an exception; the other large US tight oil basins cannot grow at current conditions:

Well status

In the 3rd tab, you will find the status and production rate of all the horizontal wells here. Whereas we saw in our update on North Dakota earlier this week that 40% of the wells there are now below 25 b/d, here the number is 31% (9,300 wells).

Productivity ranking

Two weeks ago, Pioneer Natural Resources announced a major acquisition of DoublePoint Energy. Both operators have most of their operations in the Midland Basin. In this screenshot (from our Productivity Ranking dashboard), you will find how all the larger operators in this area (>50 operated wells) fare in terms of well productivity, as measured by the average amount of oil recovered in the first 6 months:

On this metric, Pioneer Natural Resources is in the 2nd position, behind SM Energy, with on average 116 thousand barrels of oil recovered in the first 6 months (1,676 wells).

DoublePoint Energy (here shown as Double Eagle), is in the 10th spot, with 96 thousand barrels (121 wells).

Finally

We will have a new post on the Eagle Ford early next week, followed by a post on the Haynesville.

Production and completion data are subject to revisions.

Note that a significant portion of production in the Permian comes from vertical wells and/or wells that started production before 2008, which are excluded from these presentations.

Sources

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

• Texas RRC. Oil production is estimated for individual wells, based on a number of sources, such as lease & pending production data, well completion & inactivity reports, regular well tests, and oil production data.
• OCD in New Mexico. Individual well production data is provided.
• 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.