No Fracking Way! ND Oil Dropping to 3rd Place?

The Bakken boom was a wonderous thing indeed.  Fracking methods and horizontal drilling found new ways to remove oil and boost the North Dakota economy to record levels. But oil producers are like the worst boyfriend ever, always wondering if the grass is greener somewhere else. So when oil prices dropped, so did truck traffic in the Bakken. The honeymoon was once again over.

Oh well, we were still the nation's second biggest oil producer and feeling pretty good about bouncing back out of a pandemic year.  Well that "bounce back" may still be a thing, but until it acutally appears, it appears New Mexico and they're Permian Basin oil fields might be bouncing North Dakota down to the third spot.  The Associated Press had this to report-

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported Monday that New Mexico produced 1.16 million barrels of oil per day in March, the most recent month for which data is available from all states. North Dakota’s daily oil output that month was 1.11 million barrels, according to data from the state Oil and Gas Division.

Y'see at the same fracking time North Dakota was going crazy with horizontal drilling, New Mexico was doing the same. So while production in both regions was on the rise,  companies producing in New Mexico were enjoying being closer to major refineries and export terminals.  Looking at those numbers, it's still too close to call between North Dakota and New Mexico, but looking at some other numbers may start to paint a different picture.  Here's what Prairie Public News "pumped" out of North Dakota Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms..

Helms said there are currently 20 drilling rigs working in North Dakota’s Oil Patch. And at the same time, the number of wells awaiting completion has grown by more than 100. He said there is a need for “frack crews.”

"Our April rig count was 15, today it's 20," Helms said. "Our frack crews in April were 9, and today it's 8. That's going in the opposite direction."

So there's a number of wells "awaiting completion", but it seems the companies and the crews may have that roving eye of a boyfriend who's just not that into us anymore. Frack!

Although, I bet they'll be back come winter time...and you know us, we just can't let them go.