North Dakota

The rig count keeps going down in North Dakota, and it is going to get lower and stay down longer than previously thought, according to comments Friday by the state’s oil/gas regulator.

Responding to a $1 billion budget shortfall attributed to the crude oil price crash, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple on Monday ordered across-the-board cuts for state agencies and dipped into the state’s reserve funds.

The U.S. energy industry workforce continues to age and remains a serious hurdle that has to be overcome, according to analysts with Raymond James & Associates Inc.

A small increase in natural gas flaring worldwide was detected in 2011, the most recent year for which statistics are compiled, and that increase concerns officials at a World Bank-led global partnership focused on the oilfield issue.

Wyoming and North Dakota are stepping up statewide assessments of ways to cut down on the volumes of associated natural gas flaring at oil wellhead sites, but the economics for oil/gas operators in some cases are complicating the efforts.

Despite record daily production levels, overall oil and natural gas production in North Dakota leveled off in June compared with May, the state Department of Mineral Resources said Thursday.

Levying the largest civil penalty ever — $1.5 million — for an oil and natural gas violation, the North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC) last Wednesday found a small operator, Halek Operating ND LLC, guilty of violating state standards for disposing of salt water, a byproduct of oil production, in an injection well.