U.S. Energy Information Administration logo
Skip to sub-navigation
See all Reports

Drilling Productivity Report

Release Date: December 13, 2021 Next Release Date: January 18, 2022 full reportPDF
Go Back
Previous Issues
Select Month dropdown arrow
New-well oil production per rig
barrels/day		 New-well gas production per rig
thousand cubic feet/day
Region December 2021 January 2022 change December 2021 January 2022 change
Anadarko 794 778 (16) 4,084 3,961 (123)
Appalachia 188 188 - 30,284 30,345 61
Bakken 2,130 2,088 (42) 2,983 2,923 (60)
Eagle Ford 2,370 2,363 (7) 8,506 8,480 (26)
Haynesville 19 19 - 11,865 11,966 101
Niobrara 1,636 1,603 (33) 4,440 4,351 (89)
Permian 1,214 1,210 (4) 2,281 2,269 (12)
Rig-weighted average 1,142 1,140 (2) 6,272 6,312 40
Oil production
thousand barrels/day		 Gas production
million cubic feet/day
Region December 2021 January 2022 change December 2021 January 2022 change
Anadarko 378 380 2 6,321 6,290 (31)
Appalachia 120 121 1 34,825 34,903 78
Bakken 1,146 1,154 8 3,071 3,081 10
Eagle Ford 1,090 1,103 13 6,012 6,071 59
Haynesville 33 33 - 13,874 13,978 104
Niobrara 615 616 1 5,329 5,335 6
Permian 4,960 5,031 71 19,573 19,688 115
Total 8,342 8,438 96 89,005 89,346 341
Drilled but uncompleted wells (DUC)
wells
Region October 2021 November 2021 change
Anadarko 799 789 (10)
Appalachia 537 511 (26)
Bakken 516 486 (30)
Eagle Ford 796 761 (35)
Haynesville 392 383 (9)
Niobrara 372 361 (11)
Permian 1,669 1,564 (105)
Total 5,081 4,855 (226)
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

  • Give Us Your Feedback

  • Do you have comments or suggestions about our Drilling Productivity Report? We want to hear from you.

    Required Field