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Drilling Productivity Report

Release Date: July 12, 2021 Next Release Date: August 16, 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 July 2021 August 2021 change July 2021 August 2021 change
Anadarko 993 974 (19) 5,356 5,249 (107)
Appalachia 185 186 1 29,240 29,971 731
Bakken 2,400 2,388 (12) 3,192 3,176 (16)
Eagle Ford 2,336 2,338 2 8,145 8,267 122
Haynesville 19 19 - 11,560 11,571 11
Niobrara 1,919 1,902 (17) 5,370 5,209 (161)
Permian 1,234 1,229 (5) 2,231 2,220 (11)
Rig-weighted average 1,131 1,139 8 6,843 6,695 (148)
Oil production
thousand barrels/day		 Gas production
million cubic feet/day
Region July 2021 August 2021 change July 2021 August 2021 change
Anadarko 354 351 (3) 6,129 6,074 (55)
Appalachia 131 133 2 34,364 34,351 (13)
Bakken 1,116 1,113 (3) 2,798 2,750 (48)
Eagle Ford 1,043 1,039 (4) 5,842 5,835 (7)
Haynesville 34 34 - 13,337 13,482 145
Niobrara 540 537 (3) 4,960 4,938 (22)
Permian 4,647 4,700 53 18,030 18,076 46
Total 7,865 7,907 42 85,460 85,506 46
Drilled but uncompleted wells (DUC)
wells
Region May 2021 June 2021 change
Anadarko 863 844 (19)
Appalachia 598 581 (17)
Bakken 656 628 (28)
Eagle Ford 1,012 971 (41)
Haynesville 392 392 -
Niobrara 402 361 (41)
Permian 2,598 2,475 (123)
Total 6,521 6,252 (269)
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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