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Drilling Productivity Report

Release Date: November 16, 2020 Next Release Date: December 14, 2020 full reportPDF
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New-well oil production per rig
barrels/day		 New-well gas production per rig
thousand cubic feet/day
Region November 2020 December 2020 change November 2020 December 2020 change
Anadarko 1,003 953 (50) 6,248 5,936 (312)
Appalachia 173 175 2 26,700 26,727 27
Bakken 2,300 1,917 (383) 3,036 2,588 (488)
Eagle Ford 2,521 2,496 (25) 7,944 7,150 (794)
Haynesville 20 20 - 11,235 11,237 2
Niobrara 2,044 2,024 (20) 5,591 5,535 (56)
Permian 1,282 1,217 (65) 2,199 2,089 (110)
Rig-weighted average 1,033 1,039 6 7,545 7,258 (287)
Oil production
thousand barrels/day		 Gas production
million cubic feet/day
Region November 2020 December 2020 change November 2020 December 2020 change
Anadarko 401 381 (20) 6,242 6,102 (140)
Appalachia 129 128 (1) 33,770 33,637 (133)
Bakken 1,166 1,133 (33) 2,632 2,571 (61)
Eagle Ford 1,010 983 (27) 5,757 5,645 (112)
Haynesville 34 34 - 11,457 11,442 (15)
Niobrara 577 555 (22) 5,223 5,133 (90)
Permian 4,336 4,299 (37) 17,094 16,966 (128)
Total 7,653 7,513 (140) 82,175 81,496 (679)
Drilled but uncompleted wells (DUC)
wells
Region August 2020 September 2020 change
Anadarko 704 681 (23)
Appalachia 586 575 (11)
Bakken 881 870 (11)
Eagle Ford 1,181 1,166 (15)
Haynesville 317 321 4
Niobrara 454 454 -
Permian 3,546 3,525 (21)
Total 7,669 7,592 (77)
NOTE: The Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) rig productivity metric new-well oil/natural gas production per rig can become unstable during periods of rapid decreases or increases in the number of active rigs and well completions. The metric uses a fixed ratio of estimated total production from new wells divided by the region's monthly rig count, lagged by two months. The metric does not represent new-well oil/natural gas production per newly completed well.

The DPR metric legacy oil/natural gas production change can become unstable during periods of rapid decreases or increases in the volume of well production curtailments or shut-ins. This effect has been observed during winter weather freeze-offs, extreme flooding events, and the 2020 global oil demand contraction. The DPR methodology involves applying smoothing techniques to most of the data series because of inherent noise in the data.

Septeber 2020 Supplement: With low rig counts, the inventory of drilled but uncompleted (DUC) wells provides short-term reserve for completions of new wells.
August 2020 Supplement: Rig counts fall but new-well production per rig rise as new-well production persists.
March 2020 Supplement: Base production accounts for a material share of total U.S. tight oil production.

key tight oil and shale gas regions

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