Bakken Shale

An MDU Resources Group diesel refinery in North Dakota is on schedule to begin operations before the end of this year, and a separate fertilizer plant that its midstream unit will supply with natural gas feedstock now looks like its development will move forward, MDU executives told an analysts conference in Las Vegas, NV, Wednesday.

There will be no big decline in North Dakota oil and natural gas production over the next two years, the state’s chief oil/gas regulatory told an association of the state’s county energy officials on Thursday. Major production will remain concentrated in four counties: Dunn, McKenzie, Mountrail and Williams.

State oil and natural gas auditors in the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) will be looking in detail at how wellhead associated gas is handled, according to a letter sent to oil/gas operators by DMR’s auditing supervisor.

An open season earlier this year has failed to generate enough interest to move forward with a major natural gas pipeline project from the Bakken to an interconnection in northwest Minnesota, an executive with a unit of Bismarck, ND-based MDU Resources Group told an analysts’ day meeting Wednesday in Las Vegas, NV.

Production in North Dakota’s robust Bakken/Three Forks shale plays continues to ramp up, while prices for the state’s sweet, light crude oil have fallen 18% since June, prompting the chief oil/natural gas regulator to predict a Bakken benchmark price will evolve in time for the state’s 2015-17 budgeting cycle.

The latest monthly statistics for North Dakota oil and natural gas production released Friday present a good news-bad news conundrum for state and industry officials.

A pilot project to capture associated natural gas from oil wells in North Dakota is being commercialized, and the technology likely will be marketed in the Permian Basin, a project sponsor said Wednesday.

Houston-based OsComp, promoting itself as “redefining natural gas,” is moving aggressively into North Dakota’s Williston Basin to turn Bakken Shale flared wellhead natural gas into profits by transforming it into compressed natural gas (CNG) for oilfield, industrial and transportation uses.

Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners LP on Thursday kicked off a binding open season for capacity on its proposed crude oil pipeline from the Williston Basin in North Dakota to the hub at Cushing, OK. The open commitment period will close Oct. 17.