[thackney]

The drilled and completed wells will continue to produce, but they will continue to decline in production rates without sufficient additional capital investment. That hasn't changed, but with the newer shale field wells, the initial decline is much faster.

Without sufficient addition drilling, hydrofrac, etc, overall production declines. Some joke if you are not drilling wells, you are not in the oil business; if you are just keeping wells, you are going out of the oil business (eventually).

[doldrumsforgop]

a couple of points on this Bakken decline graph:

1. the bulk of Bakken wells drilled are now over three years old, so notice the limited decline they have, albeit at lower rates than during the first three years. This is keeping many in business as decline for all purposes is not much and production flattens.
2. speaking as a Bakken reserves engineer for years, the ‘10% thereafter’ has been debunked. Terminal decline rates used to book reserves to the SEC after about year 10 are at typically 5% but sometimes as low as 3%. this tail might last 50 years or more, and does not include adds like refraccing down the road.