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Bakken Gas Production Up In 2021 As Oil Drops Once Again

by Bojan Lepic|Rigzone Staff|Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Annual natural gas production – measured as gross withdrawals – in North Dakota’s Bakken region increased by 9 percent in 2021, even as the region’s crude oil production declined by 6 percent, according to the Drilling Productivity Report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

According to the report, natural gas production reached an annual high of 2.97 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2021, surpassing the previous high of 2.95 Bcf/d set in 2019 and reversing an 8 percent decline in 2020 amid demand decline and production shut-ins related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In contrast, the Bakken region’s average annual crude oil production peaked at 1.45 million barrels per day in 2019 and then declined by 17 percent in 2020 and by 6 percent in 2021. The region’s ratio of natural gas to crude oil production has been increasing since 2008 and continues to accelerate.

North Dakota state regulators and operators continue to reduce natural gas flaring at the wellhead that has accompanied natural gas production.

The EIA stated that the North Dakota Industrial Commission raised natural gas capture targets, or the percentage of natural gas captured at the wellhead rather than flared, from 74 percent in October 2014 to 91 percent at the beginning of November 2020.

As of December 2021, North Dakota’s natural gas flaring rate averaged 7.5 percent, which means that 92.5 percent of the natural gas was captured.

To meet the capture targets, midstream companies operating in North Dakota expanded their natural gas processing capacity from 1.0 Bcf/d in 2013 to 4.0 Bcf/d in 2021, according to the NDIC.

The NDIC expects processing capacity to increase to 4.2 Bcf/d in 2023 because more pipeline takeaway capacity has been added.

In February 2022, WBI Energy placed into service the 100-mile North Bakken Expansion pipeline, which can transport 0.25 Bcf/d of natural gas from production centers in Tioga, North Dakota, to demand centers in McKenzie County, North Dakota.

North Dakota Sees Stalled Oil Output Growth Until 2022
by Bloomberg|Sheela TobbenTuesday, December 15, 2020

North Dakota, once at the heart of the early shale boom, is now expecting oil production growth to stall over the next two years as explorers reel from a historic market crash and seek to adapt to higher environmental standards.

Home to the Bakken Shale formation, the state won’t see any sustained growth in production sooner than the second half of 2022, Lynn Helms, director of the state’s Department of Mineral Resources, said during a webinar Monday.

After the global pandemic had a devastating impact on oil demand, pushing a slew of U.S explorers into bankruptcy, producers are also under increasing pressure to make improvements on environmental, social and governance issues, or ESG.

“It was a pretty terrible year for the industry,” Helms said. “Producers will be stressed from both ends -- the investment end due to ESG and the markets end due to the loss of demand.”

Growth in demand is only expected to resume from late-2021 at the earliest, Helms said. On top of an improvement in consumption, growth in shale depends on investments to replace wells that decline rapidly.

Wall Street has shown no signs of willingness to bankroll another shale boom. Investors had grown wary of the industry’s inability to generate healthy cash flow even before this year’s crash, and a growing number of institutional investors are shunning oil because of climate change concerns.

North Dakota’s shale industry has had to reckon with a history of excessive natural gas flaring from oil wells, with the state introducing limits to control such greenhouse emissions at the expense of production.

This will make it harder for the state to hang on to its current production levels of around 1.2 million barrels a day, after rebounding from a 7-year low in May. The state is expecting output to decline in November and December because of a lack of well completions.

alain2908 a écrit : ↑

15 juil. 2020, 16:35

et du coup, le stock de DUC augmente où ils ont diminué les forages dans les memes proportions ?

The average break-even price needed for a Bakken producer is about $45 a barrel, Mr Nieboer said, well above $26, where WTI is now trading. The Bakken’s distance from refineries and storage hubs means local wellhead production often sells even more cheaply than benchmark prices.

Distress was visible in early April, when Whiting Petroleum, a Bakken specialist that produced about 110,000 b/d last year, went bankrupt, leaving unsecured debts trailing across North Dakota’s oilfields services sector. The precipitous drop in prices has compelled other big Bakken producers, such as Continental Resources and ConocoPhillips, to cut hard.

North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) said almost 7,000 of the state’s 16,000 wells have now shut. Analysts at RS Energy estimate production had already fallen by 500,000 b/d.

Shutting a producing well can cost $20,000, according to Alexandre Ramos-Peon at Rystad Energy. But bringing it back on stream costs up to $50,000, according to the DMR. So the eventual restart bill has already reached almost $350m.
Line chart showing Bakken shale oil production falls steeply

North Dakota oil, gas output hit record levels in August: state agency

in Oil & Companies News 19/10/2019

North Dakota oil and natural gas production reached new record highs in August, the North Dakota Pipeline Authority reported Thursday.

Statewide oil output averaged nearly 1.48 million b/d in August, up 31,460 b/d from July.

North Dakota gas output for August averaged about 3.01 Bcf/d, up from about 2.94 Bcf/d in July, which was a monthly record at the time. About 19% of the statewide gas production was flared, according to the new data.



According to the state authority, about 74% of the statewide oil output, or about 1.09 million b/d, was exported by pipeline, 16% exported by rail, 5% trucked or railed to Canada and the remaining refined in North Dakota.
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North Dakota oil production flat in January

March 15, 2019 - 7:43 PM

North Dakota's oil production in January was flat, but natural gas output jumped to a record high.

The nation's second-largest oil producing state after Texas, North Dakota in January churned out 1.4 million barrels per day, down 339 barrels per day over December's record output, according to data released Friday by the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources.

The state's natural gas production in January was 2.72 million MCF per day, up 2.5 percent over December. (An MCF is 1,000 cubic feet of gas.)

The oil numbers were expected, and Lynn Helms, North Dakota's mineral resources director, said in a conference call Friday that January was a "strong start" to 2019.

"Surprisingly, gas production was up significantly," he said.

Oil prices are on the upswing after tanking in the fourth quarter. West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the benchmark U.S. crude oil price, hit a nearly four-year high of $76 in October and then sank below $50 a barrel for a time in December and early January.

But WTI is around $58 per barrel now. Plus, the spread between WTI and the price of North Dakota light sweet crude oil has narrowed significantly in the past two months, a plus for the state's producers.

The number of oil rigs in North Dakota currently stands at 65, up from an average of 64 last month, but down from 67 in December. A rising rig count indicates operators are drilling more new wells.

"We anticipate small, incremental rig additions as the year goes on," Helms said.

Paulad a écrit : ↑

05 mars 2019, 21:40

Qu'il faut + d'eau pour creuser surtout. Et donc par conséquence, + de sable et autres matériaux. Donc prix/puits plus élevés et des endroits de fracking loin des sweets spots.

Je me permets de rajouter cet article:

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/B ... tions.html

Paulad a écrit : ↑

05 mars 2019, 21:32

https://srsroccoreport.com/the-bakken-h ... -industry/

Ca va dans le sens de ce que j'avais annoncé il y a quelques semaines sur ce topic...