These interactive presentations contain the latest oil & gas production data from all 14,469 horizontal wells in North Dakota that started production since 2005, through January. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboard January oil production in North Dakota was unchanged from the month before, at 1.4 million barrels of oil per day. In January, which is typically a slow month, just 85 wells started production. The growth in natural gas production has been steeper in the past few years. Compared with January 2015, natural gas production rose by 88%, versus 18% for oil. The reason for this is that almost all wells experience a rising gas oil ratio, and even stronger for newer wells.   In the ‘Well quality’ tab, you’ll find the production profiles for all these wells. After several years of improving initial well productivity, the 2018 vintage eked out another small gain.   All 5 leading operators in North Dakota started the year at a higher production level than a year earlier (“Top operators”). Continental Resources was the first operator in the history of the state to reach 200 thousand barrels of oil production capacity in January. It doubled its output in the past 2 years. From our analytics service (Professional), we can see how Continental Resources has changed its completion practices in the last couple of years:   In this dashboard we can see that Continental Resources did not change the length of its laterals by much since 2013 (yellow curve), but it did almost quadruple the amount of proppant used, from 3 million pounds per completion in 2013, to 12 million pounds in 2017/2018 (shown by the pink curve). The impact that this had on the amount of oil recovered in the first 12 months is shown in the plots on the right side; the bottom plot shows the same information, but now normalized by lateral length (1,000 feet).   The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows how all these horizontal wells are heading towards their ultimate recovery, with wells grouped by the year in which production started. The almost 1,800 horizontal wells that started in 2012 have now recovered just above 200 thousand barrels, and are now producing at a rate of 40 bo/d, on average. The 971 wells that started 5 years later (2017) are, with an average recovery of 175 thousand barrels of oil after 14 months on production, not far behind, and they are still operating at a rate of 227 bo/d.   Early next week we will have an update on gas production in Pennsylvania, which just released January production data as well (already available in our subscription services!). It just set another record at over 18 Bcf/d.   For these presentations, I used data gathered from the following sources: DMR of North Dakota. These presentations only show the production from horizontal wells; a small amount (about 40 kbo/d) is produced from conventional vertical wells. FracFocus.org   Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2ueHidA   Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile
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Russia’s Gazprombank leaves Venezuela. Rosneft still stays.   Moscow, Russia. March 15, 2019 Gazprombank is minimizing risks in Venezuela. The bank has sold a 17% stake in GPB Global Resources which, in turn, owns 40% of Petrozamora, a joint venture with PDVSA, Reuters stated on March 14. The bank has confirmed the fact of leaving the joint venture without specifying any details. Petrozamora was founded in 2012 to develop oil fields in Venezuela. In 2013, Gazprombank, GPB, Petrozamora, and PDVSA agreed to allocate up to $1 billion for the development of the joint venture. Now, Gazprombank does not have any investment projects in Venezuela.  Rosneft has become the only Russian company with large assets there, Kommersant noted. According to Reuters, the Russian giant oil company has lost about $9 billion on its investments in Venezuela since 2010. Rosneft is running five projects in Venezuela while producing a small share of its total oil production. The crisis in Venezuela involves the risk that the country will not be able to pay its debts. Back in 2011, more than 66% of the Neftegaz.Ru survey respondents approved the participation of Russian companies in the development of the Orinoco fields. However, right now, this heavy and highly viscous oil that the fields have produced remains unsold, as buyers have become hesitant toward purchasing sanctioned oil. Over 8 billion barrels of crude oil are now stored in offshore oil tankers, as the onshore oil terminals are full. If the situation is not improved, we can expect Russian companies in Venezuela to report serious problems. Moreover, these problems are already there. The excess of Venezuela’s oil supply has slowed down work on the Orinoco Belt, including projects for modernizing production facilities – projects which Rosneft is conducting in a joint venture with PDVSA. Rosneft has a share in five joint ventures: PetroVictoria, Petromiranda, Petromonagas, Boqueron, and Petroperija. The international rating agency Moody’s said the US sanctions against PDVSA would limit the financial and operational flexibility of Rosneft’s joint ventures in Venezuela since PDVSA owns more than 50% of each one of them. As is known, Washington has posed large-scale sanctions against PDVSA designed to limit the export of Venezuelan oil and to force President Nicholas Maduro to resign. Russia is among the countries that continue to support Maduro. Over the past few years, the Russian Federation has become Venezuela’s last resort in terms of lenders. According to Reuters estimates, the Russian government and state-owned Rosneft have lent Venezuela at least $17 billion since 2006. Dmitry Peskov, Spokesman for the Russian President, said on March 1 that no negotiations on new financial support for Venezuela were being conducted at the presidential level, but Russia continued to maintain contacts with its partners in Venezuela. “We are interested in continuing cooperation with Venezuela — especially as a number of our companies are running fairly large projects there. We hope that these projects have good potential, that they will have the potential for expansion, and of course, we wish the Venezuelan partners to cope with the difficulties they are facing, both political and economic ones, as soon as possible,” Peskov told reporters.        

OPEC Sec Gen hitting the PR circuit hard at the CERAWEEK OIL. conference this week.  Now they are the US friend.  Never forget how they blocked oil to US '73 '74 after we supported Isreal against Egypt/Syria, tried to kill US oil production both '85 - '86. , '98 - '99, and recently 2014 - 15.  Last one didnt work because non-OPEC oil has grown.  They want US oil companies to join the cartels effort.  It's against the law.  The OPEC and supporting US oil co's sherade that oil investment will dry up is a false argument.  For instance Hess just reported that new wells 2018 forward get 55% return at $50 a barrel !  Imagin what their return will be at $70 bbl. Short term prices could rise based on Sandi's cutting "EXPORTS"  in April.  Be careful to distinguish between production cuts and exports cuts.  The producers can play games with these nuanced announcements.  But more important the thing to watch is if Trump continues the Iranian waivers allowing continued shipping of oil (to India, China, etc). Sandi's said they will do whatever it takes to support oil prices.  I believe them. BUT FORTUNETLEY THEY HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THE OIL SUPPLY TSUNAMI THAT WILL HIT THE WORLD  MARKET FROM PERMIAN.  Starting Q4 into 2020 (1) new PERMIAN pipelines (2)  4 new or upgraded oil export terminals (3) by the close to 10,000 DUCs (Drilled but Uncompleted wells) will support the supply. Oil economics have changed.  Technology is transforming another industry and it's only just started.  As Chevron CEO stated, " cut costs or die". Chevron making more now than when oil was $90.0 0 bbl.   What will the valuation of E&P, Refiners, etc be if oil "stabilizes" or "balances" at $45 bbl. NOPEC should pass Congress. There are no Cartels in , Natural Gas, Iron Ore, Soybeans, Lithium, Cobalt, Gold, Silver, etc, etc, etc. Before the shale gas revolution (2007) the US was importing gas at $12.00 to $14.00 per mm/BTU.  Today it's $2.80 per mm and more investment than ever.  Japan was paying $20.00 + .  Now $7.00. Oil industry needs to face reality.  Sandi's can't charge $85 bbl for oil that cost them $4.00bbl to lift. I think we will still have cycles after the decision on waivers is made by May 8th but going forward in the year we should see lower highs with the spread between the high and low tightening until we see prices balancing in the low $50s by Q4 with even lower prices in years ahead.