With North Dakota Bakken oil production down more than 30%, the death of the mighty shale region has begun. There is no way for the companies producing shale oil in the Bakken to recover from this global contagion overnight collapse. Yes, it virtually happened overnight. Since March 1st, the Bakken has seen at least 400,000 barrels per day of production shut-in. What took three long years for the companies in the Bakken to increase production from the lows in 2016, vaporized in just the past two months. Unfortunately, shutting in horizontal fracked wells is the worst thing a company can do. Why? When a horizontal well is prematurely shut-in, it causes a lot of problems that are expensive to remedy when restarting the well. So, many of these wells may be shut-in for good. According to the Reuters article, ‘Like watching a train wreck’: The coronavirus effect on North […]