Bakken oil production grew a little more than 10,000 b/d from May to June to set a new record at just under 757,000 b/d. The play drove North Dakota to an all time oil production record of a little more than 821,000 b/d. Including Montana, it's likely Bakken and Three Forks production surpassed 800,000 b/d in June.
While impressive, the results are much less dramatic than those reported by Genscape earlier in the week. Genscape predicted the Largest Monthly Bakken Production Increase on record.
We haven't spoken to anyone at Genscape, but we have two thoughts as to why their estimate might have been inaccurate:
- Weather delays in May mean oil produced during the month might have been stored and shipped in June. In that scenario, rail shipments of oil would have been much higher than actual production in June. Genscape uses data from rail terminal shipments and pipelines to estimate production.
- Our other thought is that May production might not have been impacted as much as thought due to the weather and that delays impacted June more than May.
Both scenarios suggest we're in for a larger than normal production bump as operators catch up in the North Dakota oil patch.
Other notable items from the NDIC's director's cut include:
- Natural gas production grew to 930 mmcfd
- Number of producing wells set a record at 9,071
- Well completions fell by 4 from May to 139 in June
- Time from spud to total depth held at 22 days
- Time from well spud to first production averaged 116 days
- Backlog of wells waiting to be completed fell 10 to 490
Read the full directors cut at www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/
