A number of large US independents are showing appetites to increase their spending plans for the coming year as they seek to grow production into 2017 to take advantage of relatively stronger commodity prices.
Bakken specialist Whiting Petroleum is almost doubling is capital spending in 2017 to $1.1 billion from $554 million in 2016.
Denver-based Whiting will run five rigs in the Bakken and one on its holdings in the Denver-Julesburg basin but much of the additional capital will be used to complete the company’s sizeable backlog of drilled but uncompleted wells.
