North Dakota New Oil Production Record 609,373 barrels per day in April

According to the latest figures released Tuesday, in April there were 18.3 million barrels of crude oil pumped out of 7,025 wells. Daily production averaged 609,373 barrels.

North Dakota produced 575,490 barrel per day in March. They increased production by 34,000 barrels per day.

That’s up from 17.9 million barrels out of 6,932 wells in March, the first time North Dakota surpassed Alaska in crude oil production to take the No. 2 slot among the states. Texas is No. 1.

In April, Alaska averaged 552,384 barrels a day, down 15,000 barrels a day from March, according to Alaska’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

California has averaged around 435,000 to 440,000 barrels a day for several months.

Texas averaged 1.75 million barrels a day in March, continuing several months of increases, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

North Dakota could double its oil production by 2015 to more than 1 million barrels daily, putting it on par with Texas “if everything goes our way,” the state’s top oil regulator, Lynn Helms, told industry and government officials Wednesday.

The jump in production in North Dakota and the resulting economic activity likely would push the state’s population to more than 1 million residents, Helms told an audience of several hundred at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference and Expo in Bismarck. The U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent count shows North Dakota’s population at a record 683,930.

Billionaire Oklahoma oilman Harold Hamm (CEO Continenta Resources) said “We’ve been saying for two years that North Dakota could be at 1.2 million barrels a day by 2015,” said Hamm, chairman and chief executive officer of Continental Resources Inc., an independent oil and gas company based in Oklahoma City.

North Dakota has oil projections from their Minerals and Resources Department.

The 1.1 million barrel per day possible forecast is based upon 14 billion barrels of recoverable oil in North Dakota.

Continental Resources has new estimates 27-45 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

This would mean 2-3 million barrels per day of production for North Dakota.

The oil production scenarios in terms of rate of drilling, means if they can get to the 2-3 million barrels per day would take until 2020-2025. They are adding about 200,000 barrels per day per year.

Well counts to sustain the three oil production scenarios for North Dakota Bakken. In parentheses is the year when the cumulative well count exceeds 38,890 wells.

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