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North Dakota Energy Facts

Below are several facts about the North Dakota Shale and the oil and natural gas industry.

Jobs and Revenue

  • The oil and natural gas industry creates more than 18,000 direct jobs and 46,000 indirect jobs through goods and services that are used to support the industry (Source:  North Dakota State University, Fargo).
  • North Dakota boasts the nation’s lowest employment rates at 3.5% (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics).
  • The average wage in the oil and gas extraction industry was $90,225, 141.5% higher than the statewide average age of $37,353 (Source: NDPC Facts and Figures, 2011).
  • In 2010, the industry paid nearly $750 million to North Dakota in oil and gas production and extraction taxes, $85.2 million in royalties and another $295 million in lease bonuses to trust funds managed by the North Dakota State Land Department (Source: North Dakota Petroleum Council).
  • A recent North Dakota State University study reports that the petroleum industry paid $821.8 million in state and local taxes in 2009. (Source:  North Dakota State University, Fargo).

Energy Production

  • North Dakota is the 4th-largest oil producing state (Source: NDPC Facts and Figures, 2011).
  • At the end of 2010, there were 6,008 wells capable of producing oil and gas in North Dakota, averaging roughly 60 barrels per day (Source: NDPC Facts and Figures, 2011).
  • The USGS estimates roughly 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil are contained in the Montana and North Dakota portion of the Bakken Formation (Source:Energy & Environmental Research Center, EERC).
  • Oil production from Bakken and Three Forks is estimated to grow from 350,000/bpd to more than 700,000/bpd in the next 4 to 7 years, surpassing both Alaska and California in production (Source: U.S. Department of Energy).
  • Bakken and Three Forks have produced more than 300 million barrels to date, with North Dakota production alone exceeding 85 million barrels in 2010 (Source: U.S. Department of Energy).
  • Horizontal drilling of the middle member of the Bakken, coupled with multistage fracturing, has outperformed all previously completed Bakken wells in North Dakota (Source: EERC).
  • North Dakota’s average production in 2010 was 309,679/bpd, totaling 113,032,814 barrels for the year, and up 33,296,346 barrels from 2009 (Source: NDPC Facts and Figures, 2011).