US – update through June 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 151,164 horizontal wells in 13 US states, through June. Ohio & West Virginia are also included, as both have reported production through Q2.

Total production

US tight oil production was flat m-o-m in June, at 7.3 million b/d (after upcoming revisions). Natural gas production was above 82 Bcf/d, bringing it on par with the record high in November 2019. In the first 6 months of this year, fewer than 4 thousand horizontal wells came online in all the US shale basins, the lowest number in a decade.

Supply Projection

The horizontal rig count in the Lower 48 states has steadily increased in the past 12 months, to 473 as of last week (according to Baker Hughes), the highest level since the end of April last year. Assuming no further changes in this count, nor in drilling or well productivity, we expect tight oil output growth to resume, albeit at a moderate pace. From our Supply Projection dashboard:

As you can see in the bottom chart, which shows historical and projected output, with these assumptions it would still take a few years before production is back at its pre-covid level. But further rig additions could of course accelerate this picture. Note that the Permian is responsible for all of the projected growth.

Well productivity

We normally focus on the well productivity of tight oil wells, but in this update I wanted to show the productivity trend in the major gas basins (Marcellus & Haynesville).

Well results have increased materially in the last decade, driven by longer laterals and far higher proppant loadings. Here we can find how on a normalized basis (for lateral length), performance has changed in the last decade:

Older wells (2010/11) are on track to recover 1,000 MMcf (=1 Bcf) of natural gas per 1,000 feet of lateral length eventually, while for newer wells (by extrapolating their curves to an economic limit), we estimate the UR to be closer to 1,500 MMcf (1.5 Bcf) / 1,000 ft.

Acquisition Shell’s Permian assets by ConocoPhillips

Two weeks ago Shell announced that it would sell its Permian assets to ConocoPhillips for $9.5 billion.

Here you can see where those wells are, and how much they are producing:

In July, Shell’s 600 horizontal wells here produced just over 70 thousand b/d.

The following overview shows how the performance of those wells has changed, normalized for lateral length:

This image reveals that on a normalized basis, Shell failed to increase its well results, on average, since 2015 already.

Top operators

In the final tab the output and location of the 15 largest US shale producers are displayed.

Finally

Our next post will be on North Dakota, which already released August production data for most wells (available in our subscription services).

Production data is subject to revisions.

Sources

For these presentations, we used data gathered from the sources listed below.

• FracFocus.org
• Arkansas Oil & Gas Commission
• Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission
• Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. Similar to 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
• Oklahoma Corporation Commission – Oil & Gas Division
• Oklahoma Tax Commission
• 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.
• Utah Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining
• Automated Geographic Reference Center of Utah.
• West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection
• West Virginia Geological & Economic 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.

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.