"Almost dead flat."
That’s how North Dakota Mineral Resources director Lynn Helms described oil production in August, compared to July.
In his monthly “Director’s Cut” briefing Helms said the production increase was less than one percent. But he said it’s still exceeding the state revenue forecast, which was based on one million barrels per day, as well as a $50 per barrel price. The actual price was just over $90.
"All the buckets are full," Helms said. "If you know North Dakota plans to use oil and gas revenue, we learned from the 'boom and bust' of the 1980s not to count on oil and gas tax revenue for ongoing bill payments, but to put the money in buckets, and spend it out of the buckets, usually late in the biennium, or in the following biennium."
Helms also said natural gas production was down slightly – about one percent. And he said that was due to some gas plant outages and maintenance. Helms said the gas capture numbers still look good, with only about six percent of the gas being flared.
Helms said he’s seeing a steady stream of newly completed wells. And he said the preliminary September numbers show that.
"We would seriously anticipate we'll see an increase in production for the September report, that will come next month," Helms said.
Helms said the state is at a record number of producing wells – but not at record oil production. That record came in November, 2019, when the state produced 1.5 million barrels per day.
