North Dakota – update through February 2021

Oil production in North Dakota from horizontal wells fell by 6% m-o-m, to 1.05 million bo/d in February, based on preliminary data. Only 1 well came online every day in the first 2 months, on average, while more than 2 are required to sustain the current output.

North Dakota – update through January 2021

Oil production in North Dakota fell by 4% m-o-m, to 1.11 million bo/d in January, based on preliminary data. Just 25 new wells came online, the lowest number in at least 12 years, except for May last year when the number was 17. In the past 2 months, 12 rigs were drilling horizontal wells in the state, which in our estimation is about half of what would be needed to maintain current output.

North Dakota – update through December 2020

Oil production in North Dakota continued its fall to 1.15 million bo/d in December (before revisions). Almost 600 wells were completed in 2020, fewer than half compared with the previous year (1,270) and the lowest number since 2009. This was obviously not sufficient to maintain output and the loss year-over-year was almost 300 thousand bo/d.

North Dakota – update through November 2020

Oil production in North Dakota fell by less than 1% in November at just below 1.18 million bo/d. This was a tad lower than the first peak in December 2014 (1.19 million b/d). Although more than 2,100 wells are still shut-in (up from 1,500 before the pandemic started and down from the 4,300 in May), I don’t expect this number to fall by much anymore, as it hasn’t over the last month. Through November 2020, 551 wells started production, which was less than half compared with the same period in the year before (1,176).

North Dakota – update through October 2020

Oil production in North Dakota fell by 1% in October to just below 1.2 million bo/d, despite that more than 100 temporarily shut-in wells were brought back online. The main reason for the drop was that between May and October only 1 well was completed every day, on average, far below the level required to maintain current output (~3 wells/day).

North Dakota – update through September 2020

Oil production in North Dakota recovered for the 4th consecutive month in September, but by a smaller amount than in the previous 2 months (50 kbo/d vs >100 kbo/d). The inactive well count dropped by less than 10%, from 2,440 to 2,266, a level 50% higher than seen in March. Through September this year, 480 new wells came online, compared with 949 in the same period last year.

North Dakota – update through August 2020

Oil production in North Dakota continued to recover in August from the low in May, as it climbed to just above 1.1 million bo/d. About 700 more wells that were temporarily shut-in came back online in August, compared with almost 1,000 in the month before. Another 1,000 wells (above the March level) remain shut-in.

North Dakota – update through July 2020

North Dakota oil production recovered further in July to just above 1 million bo/d. This was about 150 thousand bo/d higher than in June, most of it due to existing wells being put back on production. Through July 423 new wells were completed, far below the level in the same period last year (719), but still higher than seen in 2016 (381). Just below 3,200 horizontal wells were inactive (not producing anything) in July, a drop of 1,000 compared with the month before. The number of inactive wells at the start of the year was about half (1,600).

North Dakota – update through June 2020

North Dakota oil production rose by 30 thousand bo/d in June to just shy of 0.9 million bo/d, after 2 months of steep declines. Despite the uptick in output, this was still half a million bo/d below the level at the start of the year.

North Dakota – update through May 2020

North Dakota oil production fell by 350 thousand bo/d in May to 0.85 million bo/d, an even larger decline than we saw in the previous month (200 kbo/d). The last time the state produced this much was 7 years ago.