Studying older Montana fields to predict gas output in North Dakota’s future

If North Dakota oil production peaks 20-30 years from now, what can state leaders expect gas production to do? Will it imitate Montana’s fields, which means North Dakota is going to be a very large gas producing state after its Bakken oil production declines?

North Dakota Pipeline Authority Director Justin Kringstad wants those questions answered in the $120,000 study Bentek Energy was recently awarded by the North Dakota Industrial Commission, and is targeted to complete by mid-July.

One of the fields Bentek will study is Elm Coulee in eastern Montana, because it began producing from the Bakken in 2001-2002, versus 2008 for North Dakota. Other Montana Bakken production, although small by today’s standards, got under way in 1986.

“We want to understand where we’re headed,” Kringstad said, pointing to the adjacent graph, which shows Montana’s Bakken oil and gas declining together until “about 2006, when the gas production basically turned around, and the gas/oil ratio started increasing dramatically.”

“How can we expect our … wells to produce, because this has a tremendous impact on how we design our gathering systems, our gas plants, our interstate pipeline systems,” something the second phase of the study will address, he said.

—Kay Cashman

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