By:  Bob van der Valk

Bakken crude oil production in North Dakota was up back up in February to a record 779,000 barrels a day. “The record likely will be shattered repeatedly this summer”, said Lynn Helms, director of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, ” A dozen more rigs have been added to the arsenal drilling in the state” .

Helms forecasted, during his press briefing in Bismarck, ND on April 16, 2013, these numbers to go even higher in the summer and said: “Those middle five months of the year will see a big surge in production,” Crude oil production took a hit in the months of November 2012 thru January 2013 due to the extreme harsh weather conditions during those months shutting down most new drilling activity.

The Tale of the Tape:

New all-time high for production: 778,176 barrels per day — compared to February 2012: 737,787 barrels per day. That’s a five percent increase.

The number of producing wells is also at a new all-time high: 8,492

Permitting:

  • March:     218
  • February: 185
  • January:   218

Comments:

The number of completions is well above the threshold needed to maintain production so oil production rate rose sharply, up 5.6%. The number of well completions doubled in February, over January, to 170.

The NDIC estimates that at the end of January there were about 375 wells waiting on completion.

Link: the Director’s Cut at the NDIC home page

URTeC, 12-14 August 2013 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver