The Bakken Shale| November 2020
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 November)
Total Rigs in North Dakota- 11
Total Rigs in United States- 320
Total U.S. Rigs down 60% YTD
Bakken Top Producers
Top Gas Producer- Continental Resources, INC.
Top Oil Producer- Continental Resources, INC.
Financial & Economic Updates
Drones Overhead
Drones are becoming an increasingly viable way to monitor oil and gas activity over large areas. North Dakota plans to build a ground-based network of sensors and radar systems, command and control relays, and an operations center that can process safety critical data. The entire program will be named “Vantis” and allow automated drones to fly throughout large areas of the Bakken and monitor infrastructure. This will be a test project intended to test the viability of a sort of robot highway that can collect and transfer large amounts of critical data in hopes of expanding it into other sectors. The team managing Vantis hopes to coordinate safe flights in an autonomous fashion so that humans can reap the benefits of automation. Research for projects of this nature aren’t new, but many projects focused on oil and gas objectives have been put on hold due to low commodity pricing.
Top Gas Producers (2020 cum)
| Rank | Company | Production (MCF) |
| 1 | Continental | 112,541,615 |
| 2 | Hess | 91,446,304 |
| 3 | Oasis | 66,890,797 |
| 4 | Whiting | 73,620,742 |
| 5 | XTO | 54,597,575 |
Top Oil Producers (2020 through)
| Rank | Company | Production (Bbl) |
| 1 | Continental | 42,812,450 |
| 2 | Hess | 36,688,300 |
| 3 | Marathon | 30,016,515 |
| 4 | Whiting | 25,762,916 |
| 5 | WPX | 24,619,772 |
Refining
North Dakota Production
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www.eia.gov
www.drillinginfo.com
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