Say Anything Blog

We here in North Dakota, and even those around the nation, are familiar with the now-famous Bakken oil formation in western North Dakota that has been making millionaires out of ranchers and farmers and driving the state’s economy for several years now.  But now it turns out that there may be another oil formation in the state with reserves that are “as good or better” than those in the Bakken.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - Dozens of fruitful wells beneath the rich Bakken shale in North Dakota continue to fuel a hunch among oilmen and geologists that another vast crude-bearing formation may be buried in the state’s vast oil patch.

Lynn Helms, director of the state Department of Mineral Resources, said recent production results from 103 newly tapped wells in the Three Forks-Sanish formation show many that are “as good or better” than some in the Bakken, which lies two miles under the surface in western North Dakota and holds billions of barrels of oil.

“I think it’s a big deal and we’re pretty fired up about it,” Helms said.

Companies have reported some Three Forks wells recovering more than 800 barrels daily, considered decent by Bakken standards.

Denver-based Whiting Petroleum Corp. has drilled two wells in the Three Forks formation, with one that recorded more than 1,000 barrels of oil a day, said John Kelso, a company spokesman.

“We are excited about Three Forks but it’s early on in the play,” Kelso said. “I do know a lot of companies are redirecting focus from the Bakken to Three Forks.”

This is great news, and the political implications are interesting.

Nationally, I think this puts a ton of pressure on Senators Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad to vote “no” on any cap and trade carbon tax legislation that comes before them.  Everyone in North Dakota knows how important oil development in the Bakken has been to the state’s economy.  Jobs.  Wealth.  Prosperity.  If Dorgan and Conrad vote for a carbon tax that will sharply diminish (if not extinguish) the profitability of developing oil reserves in the Bakken, and now potentially the Three Forks area, not even the millions of out-of-state political contributions that keep them in office term after term will be enough to mitigate the backlash.

Locally, you’ve got to think that political leaders in the state are breathing a sigh of relief.  In the last election they, up to and including “Republican” Governor John Hoeven, thumbed their noses at tax relief and pretty much spent every dime of the much-touted state budget surplus putting us in a perilous position should oil prices stay low and the economic activity that was driving record-setting tax revenues fall off.  But now we’ve got another oil formation as good or better than the Bakken, and the tax proceeds from the resulting economic activity will probably allow them to keep up their profligate ways for another legislative session or two.

At least until Governor Hoeven has moved on and someone else can take the blame for a massively bloated state budget that tax revenues eventually won’t be able to keep up with any more.