With breakthroughs in drilling technology reducing costs and crude oil prices near $70 a barrel, wells in North Dakota are turning into cash cows.
The cost of getting oil and gas to the surface in North Dakota’s Bakken field has fallen, recently hitting $41 to $50 a barrel for the top-quartile wells in the region, according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance report. Challenges still remain in the region, which is plagued by a lack of gas pipelines to take the fuel to more-promising markets, leading to an increase in flaring, the practice of burning the gas coming out of oil wells.
