I got an email last night questioning my "20 years to deplete the Bakken".. comment above.. So I might as well clarify for all here.. Here's my reply..
As prices rise.. more technology can be employed to recover more oil.. and hence reserves increase. However, as prices fall.. Oil companies have to write down the size of their reserves if they fall below economic recovery levels..
Hence at $40 crude the Bakken is not going to yield as much as at $100.. whatever that production number is.. Here's where I did the math last December..
Last April, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the Bakken and Three Forks to hold 4.4 billion to 11.4 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil.
( http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059996282 )Thus I used 7.9 byn / 1.12 = 19.3 years.. Who knows what it will actually be.. but that appears to be as good of a guess as any for now splitting the difference between the low and the high estimate.. fwiw. Now your NOT going to get 20 years and done.. you get a Bell curve on production.. the field is discovered.. and the gold rush starts..
(which has occured
) production ramps up...until it hits a sustainable level.. SINCE we've fallen from $100 Crude to now $40.. that sustainable level is LOWER.. and viola.. we are starting to see the production declines...
However, as prices rise..
(at some point.. IF Goldman is correct.. ?? Their argument is that the economy is too weak..?? could be...?? idk..
) but at some point we'll probably put more rigs into the project.. but the decline curve will march on.. Bakken WILL NOT deplete in only 20 years because it's impossible to drain it that fast.. Mainly at Market Prices WHAT
(??
) will production be..??
1.2 myn bbls per day.. 1.0.. 850k.. 1.25..?? etc.. it'll fluctuate with prices.. if we Go down to $20.. that will probably slam the brakes on pretty hard.. if we rally back to $80..?? probably see the rigs fire up.. I'm sure that 100 years from now... someone will be drilling and producing in the Bakken.. there will probably be a LONG tail.. but it probably WILL NOT be at 1 myn bbls per day.. like we have now... but.. idk...??? I could be wrong.
Well again from previous posts..
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. 
Ethanol update.
