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Drilling Productivity Report

Release Date: August 16, 2021 Next Release Date: September 13, 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 August 2021 September 2021 change August 2021 September 2021 change
Anadarko 974 955 (19) 5,250 5,145 (105)
Appalachia 186 186 1 29,971 30,121 150
Bakken 2,388 2,378 (10) 3,344 3,329 (15)
Eagle Ford 2,342 2,343 1 8,302 8,426 124
Haynesville 19 19 - 11,500 11,615 115
Niobrara 1,901 1,884 (17) 5,209 5,053 (156)
Permian 1,229 1,224 (5) 2,254 2,243 (11)
Rig-weighted average 1,139 1,150 11 6,715 6,697 (18)
Oil production
thousand barrels/day		 Gas production
million cubic feet/day
Region August 2021 September 2021 change August 2021 September 2021 change
Anadarko 370 366 (4) 6,192 6,132 (60)
Appalachia 129 130 1 34,366 34,386 20
Bakken 1,139 1,138 (1) 3,005 3,004 (1)
Eagle Ford 1,054 1,049 (5) 5,971 5,965 (6)
Haynesville 34 34 - 13,413 13,537 124
Niobrara 555 564 9 5,032 5,041 9
Permian 4,756 4,805 49 17,947 18,019 72
Total 8,037 8,086 49 85,926 86,084 158
Drilled but uncompleted wells (DUC)
wells
Region June 2021 July 2021 change
Anadarko 856 836 (20)
Appalachia 595 579 (16)
Bakken 619 592 (27)
Eagle Ford 954 910 (44)
Haynesville 399 397 (2)
Niobrara 373 354 (19)
Permian 2,419 2,289 (130)
Total 6,215 5,957 (258)
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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