Category: Energy

Graph of North Dakota oil production – another record – May 2012

Average daily oil production in North Dakota for May 2012 was 639,277 bopd, which is an increase of 29,904 barrels per day over April, or 4.9%.  The April increase was 33,883 bopd, or 5.9% for the month. Increase in March was 17,235 bopd, or 3.1% over February.

Number of wells increased to 6,954.

You can find the data here.

Here is a graph of monthly production:

For some longer term perspective, here is the production data for the month of May over the last 5 years. Continue reading “Graph of North Dakota oil production – another record – May 2012”

Did you know the U.S. drilled the last drop of its oil two years ago? – peak oil #7

Seriously.

We don’t have any more oil to drill.  Let me prove it to you.

In 2000, we had 21 billion barrels of proved oil reserves. Proved reserves are the amount that is economically and technically feasible to produce.

In 1999 we produced 5.9M barrels a day. Prediction for production in 2000 was 5.8M bopd. That latter number is equal to 2.11B barrels a year.

That means as of January 1, 2000 we had 9.92 years of oil that we could economically and technically get to. In other words, we ran out of oil back in November 2009 or earlier.

Continue reading “Did you know the U.S. drilled the last drop of its oil two years ago? – peak oil #7”

Forecasts for Bakken field. Part 2

Previous post covered some of the info from a presentation by Mr. Lynn Helms, North Dakota’s Director of Mineral Resources, at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference on May 25, 2012. You can find the PDFs from the presentation here.

Here is some more info I enjoyed from the presentation.

Possible number of new wells in North Dakota

Continue reading “Forecasts for Bakken field. Part 2”

Forecasts for Bakken field. Part 1

Wow. I tripped across the PDF slides for the presentation by Mr. Lynn Helms, North Dakota’s Director of Mineral Resources, at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference on May 25, 2012. You can find the presentation on this page. The title is WBPC Activity.

A big thank you to Mark J. Perry at Carpe Diem for pointing me to the PDF slide presentation.

Mr. Helms presentation is the source for many of the articles I’ve read and the resulting posts on this blog.

What is the very condensed message from the presentation?

The oil boom in North Dakota, which has seen production skyrocket to over 600,000 barrels per day, is just getting started.

Typical production from a well

Continue reading “Forecasts for Bakken field. Part 1”

ND oil production 1M bopd by 2015 or 2019

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

Continue reading “ND oil production 1M bopd by 2015 or 2019”

What portion of U.S. based drilling rigs are in Bakken and Eagle Ford?

25%.

One-fourth of the active rigs in the U.S. are located in those two areas.

There are 1,959 rigs working as of June 29, 2012. As I mentioned here, there are 215 rigs in Bakken and 278 in Eagle Ford. That means 11.0% of the U.S. rigs are in Bakken and 14.2% are in Eagle Ford. That totals to 25.2% of U.S. rigs in two plays.

I got to wondering what portion of the national drilling was in those two areas. A few minutes of research gave me plenty of info.

Continue reading “What portion of U.S. based drilling rigs are in Bakken and Eagle Ford?”

Back of the envelope calculation for the total drilling investment per month in Bakken and the possible revenue over the next year

Here is a wild guess on what a month’s worth of production might cost and the value of oil produced in the next 12 months for the Bakken field.

The drillers are investing far more than a billion dollars per month. My estimate is the new wells drilled in one month will produce gross revenue for the next year’s production in the range of 1 billion or 3 billion dollars.

Continue reading “Back of the envelope calculation for the total drilling investment per month in Bakken and the possible revenue over the next year”

Official estimate of Williston population grows 9% in 2011

The Williston Herald describes the Census Bureau’s estimate of 2011 population for North Dakota and key cities in their article Census estimates indicate growth in ND oil patch.

The article says the official estimates are that Williston and Watford City grew by 9% in 2011. 

Official count for the state is 683,932.

Although this is the official data, the real count is likely far higher. The changes in the oil patch are running too fast for the estimates to keep up.

Continue reading “Official estimate of Williston population grows 9% in 2011”

What if Bakken and Eagle Ford with new production of 1 million barrels a day are just the beginning?

What if new production of one million barrels of oil per day from just two fields is just the opening round of new production in the US?  What if that is just the start of worldwide growth in production?

I just took a first glance at Oil: The Next Revolution – The Unprecedented Upsurge of Oil Production Capacity by Leonardo Maugeri.

Consider this:

Continue reading “What if Bakken and Eagle Ford with new production of 1 million barrels a day are just the beginning?”

“Peak Oil” assumes we will never find a new field, so what just happened in Liard Basin can’t happen – peak oil #6

The Peak Oil concept is that production has peaked, production levels will soon decline in the U.S. & worldwide, and we will soon run out of oil.  At a fundamental level that assumes there isn’t any more oil than what we know about right now and that we can’t get to anything that we don’t know how to reach now.

Today I provide two illustrations of the fallacy of Peak Oil.

First, a new field means that tomorrow we can get to energy we didn’t know about yesterday.

Continue reading ““Peak Oil” assumes we will never find a new field, so what just happened in Liard Basin can’t happen – peak oil #6”

Graphs of North Dakota oil production – April 2012

Here’s a few graphs of North Dakota oil production.

Click on any graph to enlarge.

Average daily production by month:

Annual average of daily production (calculated as total production for the year divided by 365, except for 2012 which is divided by 121): Continue reading “Graphs of North Dakota oil production – April 2012”

Bakken illustrates flexibility of proven reserves and breaks the ‘peak idiocy’ concept – peak oil #5

I’ve been using Daniel Yergin’s Wall Street Journal article There Will Be Oil as the jumping off point to explain that the concept of ‘peak oil’ is invalid.  The posts have been combined into a page. You can click here or click on the “Peak Oil” page at the top of this blog.

Mr. Yergin comments on the Bakken field. Look at the appearance of unknown oil:

In 2003, the Bakken formation in North Dakota was producing a mere 10,000 barrels a day. Today, it is over 400,000 barrels, and North Dakota has become the fourth-largest oil-producing state in the country. Such “tight” oil could add as much as two million barrels a day to U.S. oil production after 2020—something that would not have been in any forecast five years ago.

(I think the stat for 2003 production is far too low, but the underlying point stands strong.)

Notice the unexpected growth in Bakken production? The huge amount of oil behind that 400k per day output wasn’t anywhere in the proven reserve list in 2003. Wasn’t even an idea in anyone’s head.

Continue reading “Bakken illustrates flexibility of proven reserves and breaks the ‘peak idiocy’ concept – peak oil #5”

North Dakota oil production passes 600,000 barrels per month, pulling ahead of Alaska by a smidgeon

April production averaged 609,373 barrels per day. That is up 33,883 bopd from March. Number of producing wells is 6,734, which is an increase of 93 for the month.

Stats on oil production from the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources are here.

Production data from Alaska can be found here.

With April production in Alaska of 18,210,000 barrels for a 30 day month that is an average of 607,000 per day. That means production in North Dakota is very slightly ahead of production in Alaska.

Continue reading “North Dakota oil production passes 600,000 barrels per month, pulling ahead of Alaska by a smidgeon”