The saying is that hindsight (always) provides 20/20 vision. In this post I present a retrospective look at my prediction from 2012 published on The Oil Drum (The “Red Queen” series) where I predicted that Light Tight Oil (LTO) extraction from Bakken in North Dakota would not move much above 0.7 Mb/d. Profitable drilling in Bakken for LTO extraction has been, is and will continue to be dependent on an oil price above a certain threshold, now about $68/Bbl at the wellhead (or around $80/Bbl [WTI]) on a point forward basis. (The profitability threshold depends on the individual well’s productivity and companies’ return requirements.) Complete analysis of developments to LTO extraction should encompass the resilience of the oil companies’ balance sheets and their return requirements. Figure 01: The chart above shows development in Light Tight Oil (LTO) extraction from January 2009 and as of August 2014 in Bakken North […]