Opportunity Awaits: Bakken Oil Fields in North Dakota

The Bakken oil fields of North Dakota represent the single largest opportunity for oil and gas investors in the 21st Century. Stretching into Saskatchewan Canada, Montana, and South Dakota, the bulk of the Bakken oil fields are in North Dakota, and the transformation of that state has been remarkable. North Dakota moved from 9th to 2nd in oil production in the U.S. thanks to the Bakken fields of North Dakota. And thanks to the implementation of new technologies like hydraulic fracturing, the U.S. is producing more oil than it has in nearly 20 years. The entire world is feeling the impact of the increased production.

Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of HIS and the author of “The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World,” remarked in a Wall Street Journal interview about the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota how much the energy situation has changed in just four years: “The last time we had a presidential election, the U.S. was going to run out of oil. Since then, U.S. oil production has grown about 25%. As has happened in the past, technology has opened doors people didn’t know were there or didn’t think could be opened.”

Thanks to the rapid growth in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota, millions of jobs have been created, the U.S. is one step closer to energy independence, the country is on a much different footing with the Middle East, and new millionaires are being created every day. (According to Bruce Gjovig, founder of the Center of Innovation at the University of North Dakota, the oil rush in the Bakken fields of North Dakota may create more than 2,000 millionaires per year.

How have the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota impacted U.S. production?

Thanks to hyrdofracking and horizontal drilling technologies, shale gas, which once accounted for less than 5% of all gas production in the U.S. now accounts more nearly half, and our ability to extract oil from established oil fields has energized production and reduced our oil imports by more than 20%.

The Bakken oil fields of North Dakota are poised to help make the United States energy independent. As production continues to increase, our need to import oil from the Middle East or rely on foreign energy sources will continue to diminish.

Will the Bakken fields of North Dakota continue to produce?

The Bakken oil fields of North Dakota broke the 600,000-barrel-per-day mark in July, a year over year increase of 69%.  According to Christian O’Neill, a senior analyst for oil and gas, the production “is still in its early stages.” We are truly entering an American oil revolution. Between the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota and the Eagle Ford and Permian shale regions in Texas, oil production in the U.S. is higher than it has been in over a decade, allowing our country to meet more than 80% of its demand from domestic supply sources.