16 April 2014, News Wires – Output from the Bakken and Permian shale oil formations should rise by 650,000 barrels per day by the end of 2015 to 3.1 million barrels, according to energy intelligence group Genscape.
The group, which forms its production estimates and forecasts by monitoring oil producing and transport facilities, expects production across the country to rise by just under 2.3 million bpd by the end of 2015 to 10.2 million bpd.
That is more than double the amount of crude the United States was producing at the bottom of a long decline, which was only turned around thanks to the advent of shale oil drilling, Reuters reported.
Production averaged about 5 million bpd in 2008, the weakest year, though it even dipped below 4 million bpd in September, monthly Energy Information Administration data show.
Genscape analysts said oil production from the Permian and Bakken shale oil plays dipped by about 120,000 bpd at the end of last year due to unusually brutal winter weather and only recovered in February.
But growth in the Bakken and the Permian will continue to be healthy. Bakken production will grow to 1.2 million barrels by the end of 2015 from around 950,000 bpd now while the Permian to 1.9 million bpd from 1.5 million bpd now.
“We have seen a pretty significant increase in rig counts (in the Permian basin) as well as significant increases in horizontal well rigs,” Reuters quoted oil product manager at Genscape, Jodi Quinnell, as saying.
“We’re up over the peak (in rig count) that we saw in 2012. I believe that there is upside risk to our production forecasts because of this factor,” she said. Some 114 rigs have been added to the basin since last summer to over 500 in total.
Genscape is better known in the industry for its pipeline and refinery monitoring and data interpretation but it acquired two years ago Spring Rock, which specialises oil and gas production forecasts in North America.
– Upstream