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Drilling Productivity Report

Release Date: September 13, 2021 Next Release Date: October 18, 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 September 2021 October 2021 change September 2021 October 2021 change
Anadarko 955 898 (57) 5,145 4,836 (309)
Appalachia 186 187 1 30,121 30,127 6
Bakken 2,378 2,250 (128) 3,329 3,150 (179)
Eagle Ford 2,360 2,362 2 8,416 8,458 42
Haynesville 19 19 - 11,647 11,764 117
Niobrara 1,806 1,734 (72) 4,949 4,751 (198)
Permian 1,228 1,223 (5) 2,258 2,246 (12)
Rig-weighted average 1,150 1,159 9 6,702 6,614 (88)
Oil production
thousand barrels/day		 Gas production
million cubic feet/day
Region September 2021 October 2021 change September 2021 October 2021 change
Anadarko 369 367 (2) 6,139 6,102 (37)
Appalachia 125 126 1 34,783 34,857 74
Bakken 1,139 1,144 5 3,003 3,011 8
Eagle Ford 1,053 1,053 - 5,990 6,000 10
Haynesville 34 34 - 13,415 13,497 82
Niobrara 576 585 9 5,090 5,109 19
Permian 4,773 4,826 53 18,700 18,763 63
Total 8,069 8,135 66 87,120 87,339 219
Drilled but uncompleted wells (DUC)
wells
Region July 2021 August 2021 change
Anadarko 838 819 (19)
Appalachia 590 574 (16)
Bakken 590 563 (27)
Eagle Ford 912 869 (43)
Haynesville 402 398 (4)
Niobrara 380 371 (9)
Permian 2,249 2,119 (130)
Total 5,961 5,713 (248)
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.

September 2021 Supplement: Gas-to-oil ratios in U.S. primary oil-producing regions.
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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