I’m going to start accumulating estimates of when North Dakota oil production will pass the 1 million barrels per day mark.
Prairie Business reports in ENERGY: 1 million barrels possible an estimate that ND production will be 1M bopd by 2015. James Volker, chairman and CEO of Whiting Petroleum Corp., makes that prediction.
A plateau of 800K bopd is more likely, according to Alison Ritter, public information specialist for the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources. According to the article:
Ritter adds that the department sees the 1 million barrels per day as a possible scenario. The probable scenario is 800,000 barrels a day.
3 scenarios for production
Petroleum News has the best comments from the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference I’ve seen.
According to the article, David Hobbs, chief energy strategist for IHS CERA said he
… believes that by the end of the decade, the Bakken will produce “north” of 1 million barrels per day from current output of around 575,000 bpd
That would be over 1M bopd by end of December 2019.
Lynn Helms, North Dakota’s Director of Mineral Resources described some of the variables that will affect future production, such as world oil prices, federal permitting regs and overreach by EPA to constrain fracking. He outlined three scenarios:
If all the possible risk factors go wrong, North Dakota’s production would be limited to around 650,000 bpd and hold at that rate for two to three years before declining.
Under a mid-case scenario, Helms predicts North Dakota would hit 800,000 bpd and hold for 10 to 12 years before declining.
And if all goes well in North Dakota’s favor, the state would hit 1 million bpd.
“If everything works out, then we’re going to chase Texas,” Helms said. He noted that North Dakota is expected to level off at 225 rigs by the end of the year, and, if that rig count remains steady, it would take 16 years to drill all the needed wells in the Bakken.
Background:
April 2012 production – 609K bopd.
March 2012 production – 575K bopd
November 2011 production –443K bopd
My prediction for hitting 1M bopd – September 30, 2013