U.S. domestic crude oil output has soared in recent years, largely because of the development of unconventional oil fields. The rise has been rapid enough to raise the question of whether the U.S. is now in a position to act as a swing producer, capable of ramping up production quickly in response to new threats that might lead to supply disruptions.
As Hart Energy noted on January 6, the country is not currently capable of doing so – that is, of lifting output by 1 million barrels per day within a period of just six months. Nevertheless, Stephen Beck, the senior director for upstream developments at Stratas Advisors, has calculated what might be necessary to accomplish such a feat.
According to Beck, U.S. producers could succeed if they launched 280 new drilling rigs, drilled 420 more wells per month than anticipated under existing plans, and completed an additional 15,960 stages each month. These actions would bring the number of truckload movements needed to relocate drilling rigs up by 2,100 per month and would require producers to source another 7 billion gallons of water and 6 billion pounds of proppant, he added.
Despite these requirements, Hart Energy expressed optimism, saying: “It would require a tremendous amount of steel, supplies and sweat to make it happen ... [It] would be a daunting task, but we’ve done it before, so why not again?”