Eloise Ogden/MDN Oil and natural gas production moved slightly upward according to the most recent report from the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources.

BISMARCK – North Dakota’s oil production made a small gain with 1.120 million barrels of oil a day produced in March compared to 1.089 million barrels a day produced in the previous month.

The N.D. Department of Mineral Resources released the new oil and natural gas production numbers on Friday. The numbers are normally about two months behind.

Lynn Helms, director of the Mineral Resources Department, said once past the time for load limits and also electrical power is restored to all the meters in Williams and Divide Counties, he expects to see month-over-month production increases. He said April and May are not going to be good production months also because of the time required to repair the electrical distribution/infrastructure after the recent blizzards.

On Friday, crude oil prices were $101.75 a barrel for North Dakota Light Sweet and $134.02 for West Texas Intermediate.

As of Friday, 40 rigs were actively drilling in the state. No rigs were drilling on federal surfaces.

The state produced 3,001,535 million cubic feet (MCF) a day of natural gas in March and 2,870,829 MCF a day in February.

In March there were 17,070 (preliminary) producing wells, an increase from February when the state had 16,749 producing wells.

Fort Berthold Reservation produced 213,713 barrels of oil a day. Five rigs were actively working on the reservation and 20 wells were waiting on completion. The reservation has the potential for 3,921 future wells, according to the N.D. Mineral Resources Department.

As Helms said in the previous month, the drilling rig count continues to slowly increase.

He said the number of active completion crews increased to 15 this week.

Helms said OPEC+ continues to phase out oil production cuts beginning September 2021 through the end of the third quarter of 2022.

“At their May 2022 meeting OPEC+ decided to stick with their plan to increase production approximately 400,000 barrels per day each month going forward. Russia sanctions have exacerbated an already tight market. The strategic petroleum reserve releases by OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries resulted in a very short-term drop in oil prices,” Helms said.

At his monthly oil and gas report announcement, Helms said gasoline prices are at record highs “and there is little to no relief in sight.” He said Memorial Day weekend is typically a time when people drive more but people may make the choice not to drive as much.

“I suspect people’s summer vacation plans are changing as a result of the high gasoline prices,” Helms said.

“With the turmoil in the supply chain and everything having to change as well as the limits that we have on how rapidly we can increase U.S. production and exports, there really is no relief in sight for this year,” Helms said. “The high crude oil prices are sustaining the high gasoline prices and we’re going to see it in transportation costs of all of our goods and services, as well as what it costs to fly somewhere. It’s really going to show up everywhere in our consumer economy.”