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Drilling Productivity Report

Release Date: March 18, 2024 Next Release Date: April 15, 2024 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 March 2024 April 2024 change March 2024 April 2024 change
Anadarko 714 716 2 4,772 4,806 34
Appalachia 237 238 1 27,832 28,006 174
Bakken 1,726 1,734 8 2,624 2,638 14
Eagle Ford 1,645 1,650 5 6,043 6,050 7
Haynesville 15 15 - 13,571 13,598 27
Niobrara 1,488 1,491 3 4,523 4,569 46
Permian 1,359 1,372 13 2,512 2,523 11
Rig-weighted average 1,172 1,179 7 5,942 6,008 66
Oil production
thousand barrels/day
Gas production
million cubic feet/day
Region March 2024 April 2024 change March 2024 April 2024 change
Anadarko 383 383 - 6,557 6,535 (22)
Appalachia 150 150 - 36,359 36,286 (73)
Bakken 1,225 1,229 4 3,371 3,386 15
Eagle Ford 1,147 1,149 2 7,418 7,374 (44)
Haynesville 34 34 - 16,436 16,271 (165)
Niobrara 716 712 (4) 5,420 5,408 (12)
Permian 6,104 6,112 8 25,058 25,192 134
Total 9,759 9,769 10 100,619 100,452 (167)
Drilled but uncompleted wells (DUC)
wells
Region January 2024 February 2024 change
Anadarko 701 701 -
Appalachia 794 805 11
Bakken 320 325 5
Eagle Ford 352 349 (3)
Haynesville 758 764 6
Niobrara 673 656 (17)
Permian 888 883 (5)
Total 4,486 4,483 (3)

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.

February 2024 Supplement: Initial 180-Day Production Trends in Major U.S. Shale Regions.

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.