Flaring Up Slightly As North Dakota Sets 13th Consecutive Record For Daily Oil/Gas Production

The latest report on oil and natural gas production in North Dakota is out. You can read the “director’s cut” from Department of Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms below.

Yet again, North Dakota set new daily production records for oil and natural gas. There were 1,086,571 MCF’s of gas produced in North Dakota daily in November, and 973,045 barrels of oil.

These new records have become so routine they’re almost not even noteworthy any more. In fact, the last 13 reports from the Department of Mineral Resources (going back to the report issued January 11th of 2013) have indicated new daily production records.

In times past those records have been touted by state leaders as a positive, but with controversy over strained oil transport infrastructure (pipeline spills, train derailments, etc.) much in the headlines, something tells me these records aren’t going to be trumpeted like they once were.

The other hot-button issue is flaring, and the percentage flared vs. captured was up slightly last month from 31.66% to 32.84%. The report attributes this increase to “the temporary shut-down of the Tioga gas plant on November 25th for expansion into the new plant that should begin operating in early February.” The increase comes after three months of consecutive flaring decreases, though it’s still below the peak for gas flaring which was over 36% in September of 2011.

Here’s a graph showing the latest captured vs. flared numbers: