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BISMARCK, N.D. — North Dakota oil drillers have surpassed a milestone of half a million barrels of oil a day, the state's top oil regulator said Tuesday.

State Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms said North Dakota now accounts for about 10 percent of total U.S. crude oil production, up from just 1 percent in 2007.

Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, which represents about 250 companies working in the oil patch in the western part of the state, called North Dakota's meteoric oil production growth incredible and said it's helping make the U.S. become less dependent on foreign oil.

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BENTEK Energy, a leading energy markets information and analytics company, today announced the availability of the PADD 2 (Midwest) section of its Crude Awakening: Shale Boom Hits Oil Market Alert, which forecasts that Midwest crude oil supply will double during the 2011-16 period, growing nearly 808,000 b/d by 2016. BENTEK projects the production growth will include increases of 547,000 b/d in the Williston-ND, 97,000 b/d in the Anadarko and 131,000 b/d in the Utica (Appalachia-OH). Despite these massive supply gains and six currently announced Midwest refinery expansions, crude oil demand from regional refineries is projected to grow only 3% or 108,000 b/d during this time. Transportation projects such as the Seaway and Keystone XL pipelines are expected to provide only temporary relief to ongoing oversupply conditions. Consequently, regional oil prices are projected to remain deeply depressed.

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Production of energy is becoming so important to Montana’s economy that BBER is creating a new market segment, in its analysis, just for energy. It will pull somewhat the data from other market segments such as manufacturing and mining, but it is expected to give analysts a better idea of what is happening in Montana’s economic base.

While there will always be cycles to the oil and gas industry, Richmond told his Billings audience, but “the industry is going to be around for a whole lot longer.” And, he added, “There are a lot of reserves in the Bakken and certainly there are a lot of reserves in Montana.”

The development of the North Dakota Bakken has been dependent on technology changes that improved efficiencies, over how it was used when first applied in the Elm Coulee field in Montana. Those same technologies have returned to the Elm Coulee Field, bringing more effective completion techniques for infill and step out wells and the recovery of additional oil,” explained Richmond.

The technological advances have almost completely eliminated the risk of dry holes. Montana’s Elm Coulee Field currently has about 750 producing Bakken oil wells; during the process of development, only two dry holes were drilled. This “continuous resource” for the length and breadth of the Bakken formation is the reason for the success of the current play and the reason it is likely to continue as it moves westward.

ralfy wrote:None of these points are helpful if we are looking at around 4 mb/d for the next two decades but global demand going up by around 2 pct per annum coupled with a decrease in conventional sources. One of these factors alone will offset the increase from oil. The other.....

Serial_Worrier wrote:Global demand can't increase out of thin air. Economies will adjust to lower oil production.