Montana gas flaring at 5 percent

Flaring has not been the issue on Montana’s side of the Bakken as it has been in North Dakota because, according to Tom Richmond, division administrator of the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation’s Board of Oil and Gas, the infrastructure was in place in Montana before the current Bakken oil boom began. Much of the Bakken development in Montana is in areas where there has been historical production and where gas gathering infrastructure already exists, such as in the Red River play. Richmond says the Red River gas lines were essentially extended down the full length of Elm Coulee, and those lines were installed “fairly quickly.”

Richmond estimates that flaring in Montana is currently at 5 percent or less. Putting that in perspective, he says, the flaring is from 10 or 15 wells and those wells would be the most recent that have gone on production. But Montana, like North Dakota, has some very isolated fields that have and will continue to flare, although typically in low quantities and typically from old wells.

Wells are allowed to flare indefinitely in Montana if they produce less than 100,000 cubic feet of gas per day.

—Mike Ellerd

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