Good problems – drilling in Bakken and Eagle Ford running way ahead of completion crews

Both the Bakken and Eagle Ford fields have a large backlog of wells that had been drilled but are waiting for completion.

Since I do the majority of my work sitting at a computer, I think this is a great problem to have. Not so much for those making a living from oil production.

Over the weekend I wrote a post here, describing there are 248 wells in North Dakota that have already been drilled but are waiting to be fracked. I typically have a number of posts that are written but queued for posting. Had to move that one up the list after I read about the backlog in Eagle Ford.

At the EagleFordShale blog RT Dukes asks are there 1,500 Eagle Ford Wells Waiting to be Completed?

There are lots of estimates on how many wells are awaiting completion. Here’s the range:

If you carry the trend forward, the play will be approaching 2,500 producing wells by the end of June 2012. Add a well backlog of 1,000-1,500 and you see why analyst are raving about production growth. Estimates of 1,100-1,200 are the most common, but we’ve seen 1,500 mentioned by the most bullish analyst.

He says in his post there are around 250 rigs drilling, which means there’s around 250 wells ready for completion each month. That means there is somewhere around a four month or six month backlog.

Overall, that is a very good problem to have. It hurts, a lot, if you have millions of dollars tied up in a well that isn’t producing any income. For the economy and future production levels, that is a good problem.

Job opportunities

If you know anything about completing a well, I think there are some companies over in Texas that have a job available for you. Can you be there this afternoon? No? How about 6 a.m. tomorrow?

What is well completion?

I’m in the category of people who don’t have a clue about completing a well. If you are like me, you can get a clue at this Wikipedia article: Completion (oil and gas wells).