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Drilling Productivity Report

Release Date: October 18, 2021 Next Release Date: November 15, 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 October 2021 November 2021 change October 2021 November 2021 change
Anadarko 899 845 (54) 4,828 4,538 (290)
Appalachia 187 187 - 30,127 30,133 6
Bakken 2,250 2,152 (98) 3,150 3,013 (137)
Eagle Ford 2,388 2,390 2 8,516 8,559 43
Haynesville 19 19 - 11,806 11,924 118
Niobrara 1,733 1,663 (70) 4,712 4,523 (189)
Permian 1,224 1,220 (4) 2,259 2,248 (11)
Rig-weighted average 1,162 1,145 (17) 6,628 6,466 (162)
Oil production
thousand barrels/day		 Gas production
million cubic feet/day
Region October 2021 November 2021 change October 2021 November 2021 change
Anadarko 363 362 (1) 6,107 6,069 (38)
Appalachia 118 119 1 34,838 34,879 41
Bakken 1,131 1,137 6 3,004 3,012 8
Eagle Ford 1,076 1,077 1 5,994 6,008 14
Haynesville 34 34 - 13,514 13,649 135
Niobrara 594 602 8 5,183 5,202 19
Permian 4,826 4,888 62 19,027 19,105 78
Total 8,142 8,219 77 87,667 87,924 257
Drilled but uncompleted wells (DUC)
wells
Region August 2021 September 2021 change
Anadarko 824 808 (16)
Appalachia 588 572 (16)
Bakken 566 539 (27)
Eagle Ford 869 826 (43)
Haynesville 406 400 (6)
Niobrara 379 371 (8)
Permian 1,994 1,869 (125)
Total 5,626 5,385 (241)
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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