Production — Bakken Drilling News

The Bakken Shale drilling rig count has been unchanged at 188 rigs running over the past three weeks. North Dakota accounts for 178 rigs and Montana accounts for 10. That's right in line with the number of rigs Baker Hughes has reported working in the Bakken region for the first six months of the year.

The U.S. rig count fell twelve rigs to 1,759 rigs running, of which 190 are running in the Williston Basin. A total of 349 rigs are targeting natural gas and 1,405 are targeting oil in the U.S.. The remainder are drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.).

The biggest news of the week was updated April production numbers from the NDIC. North Dakota is on pace to hit 850,000 b/d of oil production by year-end. If oil prices and weather stay friendly, the Williston Basin might surpass 1 million b/d sometime in the second half of 2014.

Note: The NDIC reports 187 rigs are active in North Dakota. That is nine more than Baker Hughes reports. The difference is likely accounted for in the number of rigs actually working. On any given week, a certain number of rigs are in route to the next well location or idle waiting to drill the next well. Those rigs are not counted in the Baker Hughes census.

Bakken Oil & Gas Rigs

The natural gas rig count in the region held flat at 1 rig running. It's not a Bakken well and it's not a normal occurrence in the region, so don't expect much more than zero in the future. Natural gas rallied up $0.10-0.20 on the week, but ended the week back down near $3.79/mmbtu on Friday afternoon.

The number of oil rigs running held flat at 187 in the region. WTI futures fell with the broader markets during the week and ended near $94/bbl on Friday. Williston Basin sweet crude traded at $81.44/bbl on June 21st.

McKenzie County led development with 67 rigs running. Dunn, Mountrail, and Williams counties are the only other counties with more than 25 rigs running. View the full list below.

Bakken Oil & Gas News:

Bakken Natural Gas Could Fuel New ND Fertilizer Plant

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Bakken Drilling by County

What is the Rig Count?

The Bakken Shale Rig Count is an index of the total number of oil & gas drilling rigs running across Montana and North Dakota. The rigs referred to in this article are for ALL drilling reported by Baker Hughes and not solely wells targeting the Bakken formation. All land rigs and onshore rig data shown here are based upon industry estimates provided by the Baker Hughes Rig Count and/or Smith Service Co's (Schlumberger) Smith Rig Count.

The latest director's cut from the NDIC shows oil production in North Dakota hit a record of more than 793,000 b/d in April 2013. The state is on pace to surpass 850,000 b/d by year-end.

At current levels of activity in the Bakken and Three Forks, production should grow approximately 10,000 b/d per month. That puts the state on pace to hit 760,000-780,000 b/d by year-end.

The target will be easily surpassed if operators can get the oil to market. Weather delays have been the biggest obstacle in 2013. Snow and heavy rain over the past two months has shortened the most productive time of the year (summer). April 2013 was the coldest on record and May 2013 was the wettest on record.

Lynn Helms stated, "Operators have not been able to catch a break."

The delays caused by weather have made it even harder for frac crews to keep up with the drilling rigs. It's estimated that 490 wells have been drilled and are awaiting completion. That's almost 6% of all the producing wells in the state!

There are 187 rigs working in North Dakota and Baker Hughes noted 178 of those were active in the Bakken area last week.

Other highlights from May 2013 include:

Gas production set a record at 860 mmcfd
29% of gas production was flared
211 drilling permits issued

Read the full release at dmr.nd.gov/oilgas