After a year of slowed activity due to Obama’s caving in to the Saudis, the rig count in North Dakota is up 40 percent since the approval of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Analysts predict the count will rise another ten percent.
Not every oil company operating in the state is going to use the Dakota Access Pipeline, but they will benefit from the pipeline’s capacity anyway. It will create more capacity on existing pipelines, not to mention rail, and drive down the cost of getting Bakken oil to market overall.
The article notes that both Whiting Petroleum and Continental Resources are projecting a 20 percent increase in output this year. Neither are contracted to use DAPL, but both will benefit from it none the less.
Isn’t it amazing what the free market can do?
North Dakota’s unemployment rate, even after the “crash” caused by the slowdown in exploration (but not production), hovered a solid point below that of Minnesota’s. That discrepancy will broaden in coming months.
Impressive what just the prospect of a working pipeline and sane regulation for just four years will do.
Seeing many more ‘help wanted’ ads for the Bakken in trade journals I look at. The Russians are even trying (and failing) to prepare for sub $40/bbl oil. The “let-up” allowed the Bakken’s exploration and drilling crews to get a breather and refine their techniques to extract at an even lower price per barrel.
I remember when sub $75/bbl oil was going to shut down the Bakken. Of course I also remember when people talked about ‘peak oil’ as if it was gravity.
Imagine how much lower the price of gas would be if Trump had NOT colluded with the Russians!
Some fracking is viable at $20 a barrel now.
The Fed created the $147 oil price than then financed the junk bonds that invested in fracking. Now they can’t generate inflation from the low oil price. It will be a trick for Russia and Saudi to keep social stability.
Central planning at it’s finest.
They will keep at it until the bond market collapses.
At my company, the regulatory compliance staff currently matches the engineering staff in headcount. They do nothing but prepare documents for regulators.
Never mind the safety factor of moving crude via pipe and not rail. If can save just one life by not having 200 car crude oil trains rumble through populated areas… Why do libturds hate common folk so much?
OK, smart aleck comment: I do not think that word means what you think it means.