Technology can not change Geology.

The typical Bakken oil well declines approximately 40% per year. That's right — oil wells in the Bakken are declining nearly ten times faster than the global 4-5% average discussed previously.

http://www.outsiderclub.com/report/the-coming-bust-of-the-us-shale-oil-gas-ponzi/1041

Don't like that source..? how about this one?

http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059996282

Last year, the Bakken began to show signs that it's not going to surrender oil as easily as it once did. And that's motivated top drillers, including Continental, to cook up new ways of keeping the crude flowing.

One key technique: downspacing. This year, Continental will drill in tighter parallels -- like sticking more straws into the same horizontal milkshake -- to get more of the oil it knows is there.

"If successful, we think other operators in the region could follow suit which could spur an additional acceleration of well counts in the region," a team of Barclays Capital analysts led by James West wrote last month.

It's not that anyone believed the Bakken's meteoric growth -- now topping a million barrels of oil per day, from less than 200,000 a day in 2007 -- would last forever. But last year, more observers began to ask whether current technology's limit is coming into view.

"Rate of growth slowing," EOG Resources Inc. summarily said of the Bakken in a February investor presentation.

It said the Bakken has transformed from a "steady growth" play to one where return on investment -- and high-efficiency drilling -- are king. While EOG will spend more in the Bakken this year, it will focus on harvesting its core locations, not hunting for new ones.

"We are seeing the impact of decline rates and a slowing rate of change in the Bakken," analysts with Credit Suisse wrote last month.

Their report compared the first 10 months of 2012 to the first 10 months of 2013. Production grew in both periods, but the 2013 gain was 38 percent smaller.

"The magnitude of the deceleration in growth was a bit of a surprise in light of improved completion techniques used throughout the basin," said the team led by Edward Westlake.

Keeping up with the curve

Less than a decade into the domestic oil and gas boom, shale plays have begun to show similar tendencies. After companies scramble into a promising new play, a tug-of-war between technology and geology takes over.

Shale's very nature, unlike that of conventional drilling, is to burst with oil or gas in the first year, then peter out rapidly. It results in current recovery rates that may seem modest to the casual observer: in the Bakken, usually between 2 and 10 percent of the resource in place.

This year, Bakken drillers are drilling more holes in the same layer -- and venturing into other layers -- in search of a perfect oil-getting recipe. Graphic courtesy of Continental Resources Inc. Used with permission.

Getting more oil takes innovation -- in both technology and technique. Then, to reach "manufacturing" scale, these tricks have to be applied across a play.

"The rock will always win," said Joseph Stanislaw, independent senior adviser for energy and sustainability at Deloitte. "The whole game is to keep the decline curve from happening. It's always going to happen, but slowing it down."

As the Bakken's largest acreage holder, Continental holds an unusual vantage point. Not only does it see many parts of the play, facing diverse rocks, it also counts on the Bakken for most of its production.

This year, the company hopes to wrap up seven downspacing pilot projects. The goal is a mass-production formula: a way to produce oil at the scale of a factory belting out cars or sweatshirts.

Same ol Samo.. Drill baby Drill..

the Problem.. Depletion.. and it doesn't occur solely in the Shales.. it's Crude Oil Production 101.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4820

However, given the slow down in Europe and other area's coupled with price levels above those needed to meet demand under current conditions we have temporarily hit an air pocket...  how long does it last?