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Persistent Production Uptick in the Permian Basin
05/17/2022
No sooner had the crude prices soared above $100/bbl than the industry professionals believed in an incredible growth of drilling activity in North America’s largest shale patch. Analysts speculate that additional output of 500,000 barrels of oil daily would become a significant part (4%) of overall U.S. daily production. That is going to flatter oil and gasoline prices.
In spite of the raised pumping activity in the Permian Basin for the oil-thirsty countries, it is considered that the shareholders' returns and drilling costs would be in sight of producers.
Drilling permits in the Permian Basin are persistently growing, averaging approximately 210 at the beginning of April. Moreover, the permits trend is noticed as an all-time high as a total of 904 horizontal drilling permits were awarded last month.
Although weekly horizontal permit approvals have occasionally spiked above 200 in recent years, permanently elevated levels from regulators in Texas and New Mexico are unprecedented so operators are eager to expedite their development plans, trying to intensify the activity level in these areas.
Due to the growth in permit release, operators can increase the number of rigs in the second half of 2022. It predicts a noteworthy increase in supply capacity from the beginning of 2023.
Growing every day, the crude industry gives plenty of opportunities to develop different companies linked to it. Nowadays, learning and analysing the current situation and predicting the future development become easier with early activity tracking, a new service recently launched by Rextag. It allows to monitor well pad clearing, drilling operations, fracking crew deployment and completions with new data collected approximately every 2 days with the help of satellite imagery and artificial intelligence.
Rextag's Pad Activity monitor (#PAM) assists to learn about potential increases or decreases in oil and gas production months ahead of others and how potential volumes could impact storage and transportation across the Permian Basin.
This service cuts down activity reporting lag times by at least 98%, from 120-180 days down to just 5-8 days. Customers have access to reports, charts, tables, and mapping visualizations via Rextag’s Energy DataLink easy to use web-based application allowing users to filter, download and identify activity on a map or data table. Additionally, customers will be able to set up daily, weekly, and monthly email report notifications.
The time between permit approval and the first day of drilling depends on the individual circumstances of producers, though the current situation indicates that drilling is expanding in the next months. It could not be considered as a temporary surge associated with major permitting round timings overlapping, as Permian drillers’ plans will probably be upheld in the next weeks.
To adduce evidence to it, there is an increased number of approved permits recorded by large public and private operators in the Permian Basin even though independents took the lion’s share of permits scoring 500 in March.
Moreover, the private operators are maximizing the production, exploiting half of the total rigs in North America, as the increased oil price is attracting their attention. They also secured more permits in March compared to the average rate in the last year.
While the increase in drilling will result in higher production, U.S. shale producers will have to overcome several hurdles including labor shortages and supply constraints.
If you are looking for more information about energy companies, their assets, and energy deals, please, contact our sales office mapping@hartenergy.com, Tel. 619-349-4970 or SCHEDULE A DEMO to learn how Rextag can help you leverage energy data for your business.
7th week of Oil and Gas Rigs’ Growth
In the midst of the high prices and the U.S. government’s pushing, in the last week, the number of oil rigs increased by 5 and in total makes 557, its highest since April 2020, according to Baker Hughes Co BKR.N. Concerning the gas rigs, they gained 2 to 146, their highest since September 2019. Moreover, crude production was aimed to rise from 11.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2021 to 12.0 million bpd in 2022 and 13.0 million bpd in 2023, according to federal energy data. Given that this growth has been expected, recent global market changes make forecasting the output even more challenging. Learning how production will change is easier with early activity tracking, a new service recently launched by Rextag’s Pad Activity monitor (PAM). The overall amount of rigs in the U.S. would grow to an average of 684 in 2022 and 783 in 2023, due to U.S. investment bank Piper Sandler forecast. As Baker Hughes claimed that compares with an average of 478 in 2021.
EIA: Permian Basin Oil and Gas Output is Thought to Beat Record in June
The EIA forecasts that total output in the main U.S. shale oil basins will increase 142,000 bbl/d to 8.761 million bbl/d in June, the most since March 2020. Oil productivity in the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico is supposed to go up 88,000 bbl/d to a record 5.219 million bbl/d in June, as the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) announced in its report on May 16. In the largest shale gas basin, the productivity in Appalachia in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia will grow up to 35.7 Bcf/d in June, its highest since beating a record 36 Bcf/d in December 2021. Gas output in the Permian Basin and the Haynesville in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas will rise to record highs of 20 Bcf/d and 15.1 Bcf/d in June, respectively. Speaking of the Permian future output, putting hands on upcoming changes in production has recently been made easier with the new Rextag's service - Pad Activity Monitor. Thanks to satellite imagery and artificial intelligence, customers are able to monitor the oil and gas wells and are provided with near real-time activity reports related to drilling operations. However, it is noticed that productivity in the largest oil and gas basins has decreased every month since setting records of new oil well production per rig of 1,544 bbl/d in December 2020 in the Permian Basin, and new gas well production per rig of 33.3 MMcf/d in March 2021 in Appalachia.
The Williston Basin is a big area filled with layers of rock that sits next to the Rocky Mountains in western North Dakota, eastern Montana, and the southern part of Saskatchewan in Canada. This area covers roughly 110,000 square miles. Geologically, it's very similar to the Alberta Basin in Canada. People started drilling for oil in the Williston Basin back in 1936, and by 1954, most of the land where oil could likely be found was already claimed for drilling. The Bakken Formation with parts of Montana, North Dakota, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba has become one of only ten oil fields globally to yield over 1 million barrels per day (bpd) since the late 2000s. It is currently the third-largest U.S. shale oilfield, behind the Permian and Eagle Ford. The boom in the Bakken started around September 2008, coinciding with the U.S. housing market crash. The application of new technologies, such as swell packers enabling multiple-stage fracturing, significantly enhanced oil recovery, making the Bakken Formation a key player in the U.S. In 2022, the Bakken oil field saw big improvements in how much oil and gas it could produce. At the start of the year, 27 drilling rigs were working there, more than double the 11 rigs from the start of 2021. Important upgrades included making the Tioga Gas Plant able to process 150 million cubic feet more gas each day, and making the Dakota Access Pipeline bigger, increasing its oil transport capacity from 570,000 to 750,000 barrels every day.
Continental Resources is expanding its operations in the Midland Basin, including taking over some assets that used to belong to Occidental Petroleum. The company plans to use its expertise in exploration in this area.
Equinor and EQT Corporation have agreed that Equinor will exchange its operated assets in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations in Ohio for a stake in EQT’s non-operated interests in the Northern Marcellus formation.