Production in the state increased to 941,843 barrels of oil per day in October from a slightly revised 933,191 bopd in September.
The Director’s Cut report says bad weather is the reason for a small increase in production:
All McKenzie County roads were shut down for 3-4 days due to rain. McKenzie County has 1/3 of the drilling rigs and 29% of state production. This means production likely would have been 10,000-15,000 barrels per day higher without that weather event.
Why the impact?
Here is my (quite limited) understanding: Oil is stored in tanks at the pad as it comes out of the ground. Tanker trucks pull the oil out of the tanks and carry it to the rail facilities. If the roads are closed, the tanks can’t be drained and the wells have to slow or stop when the tanks get to a certain capacity.
There was a pronounced drop in the rate of increase last winter. The slowdown seems to have started early this year with the bad rains in October. With people saying this will be a bad winter, the impact on production from weather will likely be even more noticeable.
Late reporting increased production amount in September by 1,017 bopd. Revisions in ND are small compared to Eagle Ford. Not a big deal – All that means is the data gets in quicker to the ND regulators than to the Texas regulators.
(Photo by James Ulvog shows the storage tanks on a multi-well site. Above photo taken in October. This post discusses October production. How fun. Yeah, yeah, I’m weird that way.)