Occidental to Leave the Bakken

October 20, 2015 Elizabeth Alford

Occidental Petroleum Corp. will be leaving the Bakken as it sells its North Dakota oil assets

The reported $500 million deal includes the sale of approximately 300,000 acres and a 21,000 square-foot regional office complex to Lime Rock Resources. Most of Occidental's acreage is located in Stark and Dunn counties, which have not been producing like other Bakken counties, such as McKenzie.

Reuters reports that Occidental's executive vice president and named CEO Vicki Hollub is downplaying the value of the company's Bakken assets. She commented that North Dakota "just can't compete with our Permian Basin (Texan) assets and we don't think it ever will, so we do want to monetize it."

Occidental Petroleum Corp, the fourth-largest U.S. oil producer, is the first major oil company to exit the Bakken region since the oil price slump.

Just one year ago, wall street estimated a sale of Occidental's Bakken Shale assets would easily fetch a $3 billion. But oil has fallen by half since then and the company needs the cash, which caused them to sell at 'bargain basement prices'.

Occidental made history in May when it named the first woman ever to lead a major U.S. exploration and production company.

Bakken Rig Count is at 64

October 10, 2015 Elizabeth Alford

Abraxas Buys Bakken Acreage — Bakken Rigs

The Bakken-Three Forks rig count dropped to 64 rigs running across our coverage area by end of the week on Friday.

In recent Bakken news, North Dakota officials are hopeful that they have some flexibility for complying with the EPA’s new emissions-reducing Clean Power Plan.

The U.S. rig count fell by 14 this week, ending with 795 rigs running by midday Friday. A total of 189 rigs were targeting natural gas (six less than the previous week) and 605 were targeting oil in the U.S. (9 less than the previous week). The remainder were drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.) 64are in ND alone.

Bakken Oil & Gas Rigs

The Bakken oil rigs were at 64 this week with Bloomberg reporting WTI oil prices trading at $50.18/bbl on Friday afternoon. WTI-Brent increased $5.26landing to $53.51. The Bakken has zero natural active gas rig in the area this week with futures decreasing slightly to $2.49/mmbtu by midday.

McKenzie County continues to lead development with 25 rigs running this week, far outpacing other counties. View the full list below under the Bakken Drilling by County section.

Activity continues to be dominated by horizontal drilling:

62 rigs are drilling horizontal wells
2 rigs are drilling directional wells
0 rigs are drilling vertical wells

Be sure to visit our Bakken Job Listings to search openings and come back weekly for updates or sign up for alerts - Daily or Weekly Email Alerts

Bakken Drilling by County

Bakken Oil & Gas News

District Court Blocks New Fracking Regulations

Chesapeake Cut 740 Jobs

What is the Rig Count?

The Bakken Shale Rig Count is an index of the total number of oil & gas drilling rigs running across Montana and North Dakota. The rigs referred to in this article are for ALL drilling reported by Baker Hughes and not solely wells targeting the Bakken formation. All land rigs and onshore rig data shown here are based upon industry estimates provided by the Baker Hughes Rig Count.

North Dakota: Flexibility for Emissions Cuts?

October 6, 2015 Elizabeth Alford

North Dakota Developments, LLC — North Dakota Fracking

North Dakota officials are hopeful that they have some flexibility for complying with the EPA's new emissions-reducing Clean Power Plan.

In August, the Obama Administration revealed a plan designed to cut methane emissions. The details of the regulations would require that North Dakota must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2030. This is an 11% increase from the original goal from 2005.

A group of North Dakota’s political leaders, including Governor Dalrymple and U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp, met with Environmental Protection Agency administrators this week to voice their concerns over how this ruling with affect their state. The group claims that the jump in the emissions reduction goal unfairly targets North Dakota, with Heidi Heitkamp calling the changes "irresponsible".

Inforum reported that, "When the delegation asked why the percentage of North Dakota’s emissions reduction had been increased so drastically, Heitkamp said McCabe answered that the EPA changed the rule to 'accommodate regional concerns' with how much emissions are produced by going off of national averages."

The outcome of the meeting was promising and delegation members left with hopes that the EPA will allow for some flexibility. EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones said that the final rule gives states up to three years to submit a final plan.

North Dakota Revenues Drop $41.7 million

September 29, 2015 Elizabeth Alford

Bakken Rigs and Productivity — North Dakota Revenues Fall

North Dakota revenues have taken a deep dive this year but the state still ranks as a fiscal model.

Related: N.D. Legislative Session Ends

Low oil prices and fewer drilling rigs are being blamed for a drop in North Dakota's general revenues that fell to $41.7 million during July and August. But with prudent spending by lawmakers and a continued surplus, this is not devastating news. Rather, House Majority Leader Al Carlson framed it as a “real wake-up call."

This week, the Chicago-based think tank, Truth in Accounting, named North Dakota the nation’s second-best fiscal health in 2014. The agency reports that the taxpayer surplus has more than tripled since 2009, from $8,300 to $28,400 per taxpayer.

“State Office of Management and Budget Director Pam Sharp commented, “We have a really strong amount of reserves that are available, and the budget that we have for 2015-17, we really took into account that we were going to have less money.”

At the beginning of 2015, North Dakota lawmakers basically started over by pulling apart Gov. Jack Dalrymple’s proposed budget. They were forced to make some difficult decisions regarding spending cuts, while finding the money to fund important projects.

Signs of concern for the state:

North Dakota's “hidden debt” of more than $300 million in pension liability and $43 million in retiree health care liability
Job Service North Dakota reports seeing a 40% increase in unemployment insurance claims sicne this time last year
The state currently has 70 active rigs as of Thursday, down from 193 just a year ago.

EIA: Bakken Production Declines

September 22, 2015 Elizabeth Alford

Production in the Bakken Shale play decreased over the summer according to the Energy Information Administration' s latest Drilling Productivity Report.

Related: Bakken Rig Count Falls to 70

Since April, oil production in the major shale plays has decreased sharply, with total production falling by 350,000 barrels and the EIA expects that this trend will continue and for production to decline for most of the key US shales by October.

On September 14th, the EIA reported that the Bakken Shale produced 1.22 MMbpd (million barrels per day) of crude oil in August, 1.40% less than the month before but 5.10% more that a year ago. The Bakken will likely see a fall and is expected to produce 1.18 MMbpd (million barrels per day) of crude oil in October.

And the bad news gets worse. Recent data from FactSet suggests that producers in the shale industry have lost over $32 billion since January 1st and are quickly approaching the deficit of $37.7 billion reported for the whole of 2014.

Related: Shale Industry Loses Billions

The Bakken rig count has vacillated between 68-70 since July as producers remain skiddish due t low oil prices. This is a drop of over 50% from last year when the rig count was at 189 drilling rigs in the region.