The profitability of oil and natural gas development activity depends on both the prices realized by producers and the cost and productivity of newly developed wells. Overall trends in well development costs are generally less transparent than price and productivity trends, which are readily observable in the markets or through analyses of well productivity trends such as EIA’s monthly Drilling Productivity Report . In an effort to increase understanding of the costs of upstream drilling and production activity, EIA commissioned IHS Global Inc. (IHS) to study these costs on a per-well basis in the Eagle Ford, Bakken, Marcellus, and Permian regions, analyzing the Permian’s Midland and Delaware basins separately. Upstream costs in 2015 were 25% to 30% below their 2012 levels, when per-well costs were at their highest point over the past decade. Changes in […]