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Drilling Productivity Report

Release Date: March 15, 2021 Next Release Date: April 12, 2021 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 March 2021 April 2021 change March 2021 April 2021 change
Anadarko 957 953 (4) 5,343 5,316 (27)
Appalachia 180 182 2 27,434 27,708 274
Bakken 2,391 2,388 (3) 3,194 3,191 (3)
Eagle Ford 2,179 2,173 (6) 7,281 7,209 (72)
Haynesville 19 19 - 11,425 11,427 2
Niobrara 1,860 1,786 (74) 5,672 5,445 (227)
Permian 1,106 1,073 (33) 2,135 2,071 (64)
Rig-weighted average 1,019 1,004 (15) 6,756 6,676 (80)
Oil production
thousand barrels/day		 Gas production
million cubic feet/day
Region March 2021 April 2021 change March 2021 April 2021 change
Anadarko 376 362 (14) 6,194 6,068 (126)
Appalachia 122 121 (1) 34,265 34,116 (149)
Bakken 1,128 1,116 (12) 2,785 2,741 (44)
Eagle Ford 1,048 1,033 (15) 5,569 5,504 (65)
Haynesville 32 32 - 12,007 12,126 119
Niobrara 517 502 (15) 5,065 4,993 (72)
Permian 4,281 4,292 11 17,020 17,041 21
Total 7,504 7,458 (46) 82,905 82,589 (316)
Drilled but uncompleted wells (DUC)
wells
Region January 2021 February 2021 change
Anadarko 764 751 (13)
Appalachia 564 550 (14)
Bakken 702 680 (22)
Eagle Ford 1,033 1,011 (22)
Haynesville 313 314 1
Niobrara 537 507 (30)
Permian 3,275 3,273 (2)
Total 7,188 7,086 (102)
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.

January 2021 Supplement: Base production in North Dakota has fully recovered after a significant reduction.
September 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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