North Dakota Crude Output Poised to Pass Alaska: Chart of Day
Alaskan oil production may soon be surpassed by North Dakota, where companies are using advanced drilling techniques to extract crude from the Bakken Shale formation.
The CHART OF THE DAY shows production from North Dakota could increase to between 450,000 barrels and 700,000 barrels a day in the next three to seven years, according to a December report from the North Dakota Pipeline Authority, citing a forecast from the state’s Department of Mineral Resources. Alaska’s output may fall to 450,000 barrels daily by 2017, the Energy Department said Dec. 16 in its Annual Energy Outlook.
North Dakota output jumped 39 percent to 329,000 barrels a day in August from January, according to the Energy Department. Alaska onshore production fell 16 percent to 538,000 barrels a day in the same period and has declined steadily from its March 1988 peak of 2.09 million.
“Oil development is booming up here in North Dakota,” said Justin Kringstad, director of the pipeline authority. “That is going to continue for the next 10 to 20 years.”
Oil prices rising above $90 a barrel has spurred a land- rush, with companies such as Occidental Petroleum Corp., Hess Corp. and Williams Cos. agreeing in the past two months to spend a total of $3.38 billion to gain access to the oil-rich formation.
There are 3 billion to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable crude in North Dakota and Montana, according to the most recent U.S. Geological Survey estimate from April 2008.
To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Clark in New York at aclark27@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net
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