Thanks Fracking: North Dakota Oil Production Could Outpace Persian Gulf Imports

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Written By:
Rob Port

Jul 25, 2012
7:09pm

Big news today about North Dakota’s Bakken oil boom is a projection showing oil production tripling by 2025:

A new study says North Dakota’s oil production could jump more than threefold by 2025 to more than 2 million barrels a day.

The study released Wednesday by Bentek Energy LLC of Colorado also says natural gas production could more than quintuple by 2025 in the Williston Basin. The basin includes the Dakotas and Montana.

There is some reason to doubt this project. Oil prices are down, causing concern in some quarters, and rig counts are leveling off. And it’s hard to imagine North Dakota keeping up the level of explosive growth we’ve seen over the last couple of years for another 13 years.

But supposing it’s true, it could mean that North Dakota alone would offset 100% of the oil currently coming from the Persian Gulf. “If oil production in North Dakota increases to 2 million barrels per day from current daily production of 639,000 barrels, that would be more than enough domestic oil to completely offset current daily U.S. imports of 1.86 million barrels from all of the Persian Gulf countries combined!” writes Mark Perry.

Of course, that almost certainly wouldn’t mean an end to imports from the Persian Gulf as US oil consumption will climb steadily during that time as well. But it is amazing to consider. After the years of griping about foreign oil from the Persian Gulf region, that oil production in one US state could eclipse those imports is astounding.

And there are a lot of positive diplomatic ramifications for lowering demand for oil produced in troubled parts of the world.