(Photo by James Ulvog – 2 pump jacks in operation, 2 more being assembled, 1 workover rig, 1 drilling rig – That site will hold an investment of around $54M or $60M when finished and will produce somewhere between 3 million and 6 million barrels of oil during its useful life.)
Oil production in North Dakota set another record in August 2014. Total production in the state averaged 1,132,331 barrels per day. Production in Bakken only was 1,068,609 bopd. That is a 1.61% increase statewide and 1.70% in Bakken-only.
Very cool.
On 9/23, I described the prediction from Bentek: Another short term production prediction for Bakken. Time to see how that turned out.
Their prediction was 1.2M bopd from Bakken alone.
Obviously 1.069M actual is less than 1.2M forecast. About 131K bopd short, or 12.2% of the actual amount.
As mentioned in the above article, this is the second month in a row that Bentek made a near term prediction of 1.2M bopd.
I know my predictive ability for oil production is lousy. Over the last few years, all the long-term predictions I’ve seen have seriously underestimated production in North Dakota. This is the first time I’ve seen predictions that overestimated production. Note again this was a one-month forecast and it was wrong two months in a row.