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 95,093 horizontal wells in 10 US states, through July. Cumulative oil and gas production from these wells reached 9.3 Gbo and 102.9 Tcf. Ohio and West Virginia are deselected in most dashboards, as they have a greater reporting lag.
Oil and gas production from horizontal wells kept setting new records through the first 7 months of this year. The 5,600 new producers contributed ~2.2 million bo/d and 10.4 Bcf/d in July, versus 4,600 new producers in the same period last year (which contributed 1.6 million bo/d and 9.1 Bcf/d in July last year).
The steady increases in well productivity between 2012 and 2017 are clearly visible in the 2nd tab, ‘Well quality’, where the oily basins have been preselected. Almost 12 thousand wells were completed in these plays in 2014, more than in any other year, which is why this curve is drawn with the greatest thickness.
The final tab shows the production and location of the wells operated by the largest operators, as measured by their cumulative production in the past decade.
The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below:
This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows the relationship between production rates and cumulative production over time. The oil basins are preselected, and wells are grouped by the year in which production started.
You can see in the graph above that the 7,600 wells that started in 2017 recovered on average almost 100 thousand barrels of oil in the first 8 months on production, while declining from 600 bo/d to 274 bo/d. More recent and granular data can be seen by grouping the wells by the quarter or month in which production started.
The 2nd tab, ‘Cumulative production ranking‘, ranks all counties with horizontal production based on cumulative oil production. McKenzie and Mountrail counties, both in North Dakota, are in the lead, but Karnes (Eagle Ford) and Weld (Niobrara) are catching up on the number 2.
Early next week I will have a new post on North Dakota, which will soon release September production data.
In our Novi Labs Analytics service we keep all data up-to-date on a daily basis, and for most states we already have August or even September production in. If you’re interested, you can request a demo or trial here.
Production data is subject to revisions. For these presentations, I used data gathered from the sources listed below.
- FracFocus.org
- Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission
- Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. Similar as in Texas, lease/unit production is allocated over wells in order to estimate their individual production histories.
- Montana Board of Oil and Gas
- New Mexico Oil Conservation Commission
- North Dakota Department of Natural Resources
- Ohio Department of Natural Resources
- Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
- Texas Railroad Commission. Individual well production is estimated through the allocation of lease production data over the wells in a lease, and from pending lease production data.
- West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection
- West Virginia Geological & Economical Survey
- Wyoming Oil & Gas Conservation Commission
====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.
Key Takeaways
- Production data from 95,093 horizontal wells across 10 US states runs through July, totaling 9.3 Gbo and 102.9 Tcf cumulative production.
- Horizontal-well production set new records through the first seven months of the year as activity and output continued to rise.
- About 5,600 new producers contributed ~2.2 million bo/d and 10.4 Bcf/d in July, up from 4,600 new producers adding 1.6 million bo/d and 9.1 Bcf/d a year earlier.
- Well productivity increased steadily from 2012 to 2017 in oily basins, as shown by year-grouped performance trends.
- Nearly 12,000 wells were completed in the selected oily plays in 2014, the highest annual completion count in the dataset view.
- Wells that started production in 2017 averaged almost 100,000 barrels recovered in the first eight months while declining from 600 bo/d to 274 bo/d.
- McKenzie and Mountrail counties in North Dakota led US counties in cumulative horizontal oil production, with Karnes (Eagle Ford) and Weld (Niobrara) closing on second place.
