The Bakken is the "Real Deal"

[dan_s]

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has estimated that the Bakken has a projected mean resource of 3.65 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil, while the Three Forks is estimated to contain 3.73 billion barrels of oil. The two formations were also estimated to contain a mean of 6.7 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 0.53 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas liquids (NGLs).

Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources (NYSE: CLR) was the first to complete a horizontal well in the Three Forks formation, and to date the company has drilled about 20% of all Three Forks wells. Continental is the largest leaseholder and oil producer in the Bakken with more than 1.1 million acres leased. Continental's Bakken production totaled 108,573 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day in second quarter 2014, an increase of 23% from a year earlier.

The second largest producer in the Bakken is Whiting Petroleum (NYSE: WLL), which averaged 80,195 boe/d in Q2 2014, an increase of 33% in a year. Whiting has a total of 674,162 net acres in the Williston Basin in North Dakota and Montana. Whiting has held the top producer spot in the past, and should soon regain that spot. It recently announced a $6 billion all stock acquisition of Kodiak Oil & Gas (NYSE: KOG), the eighth largest oil producer in the Bakken. The transaction will create the largest Bakken/Three Forks producer, with production of more than 107,000 boe/d in the first quarter of 2014, 855,000 combined net acres and an inventory of 3,460 net future drilling locations.

Bakken oil production is a small part of the overall portfolio of Hess (NYSE: HES), but that's good enough for third place among Bakken producers. Hess reported 80,000 boe/d of Bakken production in Q2 2014, up 25% over Q2 2013.

EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG) is perhaps best known as the largest oil producer in the Eagle Ford formation in Texas, but the company is also one of the top five oil and gas producers in the Bakken. EOG keeps oil production figures for different production areas pretty close to the vest, but the North Dakota state government does tabulate oil production figures for the companies that produce there. Based on the numbers that were made publicly available (some are listed "Confidential" and unavailable), EOG produced just under 70,000 barrels of oil per day in May 2014. It is possible that if the natural gas EOG produced were included it would rank ahead of Hess in boe/d, but without having all the data available it's impossible to be certain.

Rounding out the top five for Bakken oil production is Norway's Statoil (NYSE: STO). Statoil entered the Bakken in 2011 when it acquired Brigham Exploration, a major operator in the Williston Basin. Statoil now holds approximately 330,000 net acres in the Bakken, and in Q2 2014 produced 50,200 boe/d in the Bakken.

Other major producers in the Bakken include the aforementioned Kodiak Oil and Gas that is merging with Whiting, Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO), XTO Energy (which was acquired by ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM)), Oasis Petroleum (NYSE: OAS) -- with the exit of Kodiak, the only remaining pure play on the Williston Basin in the top 10 -- and Burlington Resources, owned by ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP).