July 25, 2018

State shatters old oil, gas records

State shatters old oil, gas records

By Neal A. Shipman
Farmer Editor

At the same time that North Dakota set new records for oil and natural gas production in May, McKenzie County, which is the state’s leading producer, was heading for a record of its own.
“McKenzie County is right on the cusp of producing 15 million barrels of oil per month,” stated Lynn Helms, North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources director during his monthly Director’s Cut on Friday, July 13. “We’ve never had a county produce that level of oil. It is twice as much as any other county in the state. That is a massive amount of oil.”
According to Helms, McKenzie County, which is producing 477,000 barrels of oil per day alone, produces more oil than most other states in the country.
“If McKenzie County was a state, it would be No. 6 in the nation,” stated Helms.
During May, McKenzie County saw its number of producing wells increase by 32 bringing its total count of producing wells to 4,109. During the month, those county wells produced 14,985,199 barrels of oil and 35,817,454 of natural gas.
Statewide, Helms says that May was one of the most encouraging months in over three years for the state’s oil and gas industry.
“In May, we didn’t just set a record for oil production. We really shattered the old record which was set in December of 2014,” stated Helms. “In May, we had 17,000 more barrels per day of oil produced than the previous record.”

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