[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ks2ua4imgU]
In very big news, Million Dollar Way explains NDIC Gives Operators An Extra Year To Bring Their DUCs On-Line; Flexibility On Flaring Also Announced . DUC means drilled, uncompleted. That is well that hasn’t been fracked yet, part of the fracklog.
Currently a well must be completed, or start producing oil, within a year of the drilling being finished or else. The ‘or else’ is the state gives six months notice to complete and if not done in that cumulative 18-month timeframe, the well must be filled in.
The NDIC just gave drillers permission a total of two years to go from finishing the drilling to starting production.
More news from Amy Dalrymple in the Dickinson Press on 10/22: State adds flexibility on flaring, completing oil wells.
That means the fracklog will shoot far past 1,000.
Production prediction
Mr. Helms predicts the oil production will barely drop from 1.19M bopd now to about 1.1M bopd in June 2017.
I would call that a plateau. Probably not what OPEC had in mind.
Active rigs
Here is my recent tally of rig count, with all info from Million Dollar Way:
- 93 – 4/17
- 82 – 6/5
- 73 – 7/9
- 74 – 8/20
- 76 – 9/1
- 69 – 9/10 – rig count shows a sharp drop
- 68 – 9/14 – maybe a low?
- 71 – 9/15 – maybe bouncing?
- 68 – 10/9
- 66 – 10/14 – nope, not bouncing
- 69 – 10/22 – sort of looks like a new ‘trading range’, huh?