The Bakken Shale| February 2021
Field Overview
Named after Henry Bakken, the farmer who owned the land where oil was originally discovered, the Bakken Shale is located in North Dakota, Montana, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. The USGS estimated in 2013 that this basin has an expected ultimate recovery of 7.4 billion barrels. North Dakota Department of Natural Resources put the break even point at US$46/bbl (2020). The top formations within the region are the Three Forks and the Spanish formations.
State Drilling Statistics (End of February)
Total Rigs in North Dakota- 14
Total Rigs in United States- 402
Total U.S. Rigs down 49% YTD
Bakken Top Producers
Top Producer By BOE – XTO Energy
Basin Highlights
Equinor Bailing on US
Norway based Equinor energy continues to divest its US assets. It will now be selling North Dakota and Montana assets to private producer Grayson Mill Energy for $900 million. The high cost per barrel in the Bakken is simply too much to retain the interests of Equinor. Now, they are attempting to optimise their portfolio in order to strengthen profitability. The money from the sale will be put towards assets that the company feels are much more competitive than what exists in the Bakken. When asked if they planned to sell additional US assets, they provided no specifics, but said that they were mostly happy with remaining US operations, those being plays in the Marcellus and the Gulf of Mexico. Equinor acquired its Bakken acreage by acquiring a company for $4.7 billion, and has reported losses of $21.5 billion between 2007 and 2019, and an additional $5.5 billion for 2020.
North Dakota Holds Steady
Although the current administration is doing its best to hinder domestic energy extraction, North Dakota expects oil output to begin to pick up once again in the spring once everything thaws out. Although North Dakota did produce 1.2 million barrels per day in December, it was still a decrease from previous months as the cold continued to hinder work and development. Lynn Helms, director of the Department of Mineral Resources, noted that the federal drilling moratorium did temporarily hinder production before exemption was granted to oil producing tribal lands like the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. Even so, the order could reduce North Dakota’s total new wells by 14%. In order to capitalize on the exemption, lawmakers are working on a Senate Bill 2319, which would expand a tax-sharing agreement with the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation to incentivize more oil drilling on the borders of the Fort Berthold Reservation. This would allow horizontal drilling to reach under the reservation and tap into reserves that are significantly more difficult to access with current federal orders.
What the XL Left Behind
Although the current administration is doing its best to hinder domestic energy extraction, North Dakota expects oil output to begin to pick up once again in the spring once everything thaws out. Although North Dakota did produce 1.2 million barrels per day in December, it was still a decrease from previous months as the cold continued to hinder work and development. Lynn Helms, director of the Department of Mineral Resources, noted that the federal drilling moratorium did temporarily hinder production before exemption was granted to oil producing tribal lands like the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. Even so, the order could reduce North Dakota’s total new wells by 14%. In order to capitalize on the exemption, lawmakers are working on a Senate Bill 2319, which would expand a tax-sharing agreement with the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation to incentivize more oil drilling on the borders of the Fort Berthold Reservation. This would allow horizontal drilling to reach under the reservation and tap into reserves that are significantly more difficult to access with current federal orders.
Top Producers By BOE (2021 cum)
| Rank | Company | Production (MCF) |
| 1 | XTO | 112,541,615 |
| 2 | Equinor | 91,446,304 |
| 3 | Bruin E&P | 66,890,797 |
| 4 | Newfield | 73,620,742 |
| 5 | Rimrock | 54,597,575 |
Rig Count
North Dakota Production
North Dakota Natural Gas
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