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Drilling Productivity Report

Release Date: April 12, 2021 Next Release Date: May 17, 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 April 2021 May 2021 change April 2021 May 2021 change
Anadarko 1,032 1,030 (2) 5,699 5,688 (11)
Appalachia 182 184 2 27,708 27,985 277
Bakken 2,427 2,423 (4) 3,219 3,214 (5)
Eagle Ford 2,304 2,327 23 7,742 7,819 77
Haynesville 19 19 - 11,425 11,437 12
Niobrara 1,936 1,935 (1) 5,515 5,504 (11)
Permian 1,249 1,236 (13) 2,294 2,259 (35)
Rig-weighted average 1,125 1,122 (3) 6,869 6,855 (14)
Oil production
thousand barrels/day		 Gas production
million cubic feet/day
Region April 2021 May 2021 change April 2021 May 2021 change
Anadarko 355 345 (10) 6,052 5,928 (124)
Appalachia 127 128 1 34,208 34,143 (65)
Bakken 1,117 1,105 (12) 2,742 2,697 (45)
Eagle Ford 1,037 1,028 (9) 5,536 5,518 (18)
Haynesville 32 32 - 12,117 12,221 104
Niobrara 518 509 (9) 5,056 4,994 (62)
Permian 4,414 4,466 52 17,221 17,282 61
Total 7,600 7,613 13 82,932 82,783 (149)
Drilled but uncompleted wells (DUC)
wells
Region February 2021 March 2021 change
Anadarko 760 740 (20)
Appalachia 559 548 (11)
Bakken 669 647 (22)
Eagle Ford 1,037 1,009 (28)
Haynesville 325 324 (1)
Niobrara 520 481 (39)
Permian 3,219 3,163 (56)
Total 7,089 6,912 (177)
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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