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Oil is bringing jobs and business opportunities to the Lower Columbia region but it also is raising fears that the river will become a fossil fuel highway, The Daily News of Longview reported in Sunday’s newspaper. Last year, oil cars began leaving the Bakken shale region centered near Williston, N.D., en route 1,200 miles to Columbia County to be unloaded at Port Westward near Clatskanie. Earlier this year, Tesoro proposed to build a $100 million terminal at the Port of Vancouver that would create 80 jobs. And similar proposals are being considered in Tacoma and Grays Harbor County. The oil...

<p>Energy companies are lining up for their shot to drill in the Dakotas and Montana after a new government report revealed that a massive geological formation stretching across the states contains twice the oil and three times the amount of natural gas than was originally believed.</p>

Don’t expect the energy boom in Montana and the Dakotas to end anytime soon. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the formations below these three states hold double the amount of oil and triple the amount of natural gas than was believed five years ago. National Journal reports: The formations, called Bakken and Three Forks, span much of western North Dakota, the northern tip of South Dakota and the northeastern tip of Montana. The last time the United States Geological Survey assessed this area for its oil and gas reserves was in 2008. But that assessment did not...

Mid-Continent Crude Oil Markets Continue to Adjust to Rapid Rise in Bakken Production The differential between West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and North Dakota's Bakken crudes continues to fluctuate, reflecting both production growth and changes in oil transportation capacity. Bakken crude sold at a $25-per-barrel discount to WTI in early 2012 and rose to a $5-per-barrel premium last September, before again being discounted below WTI this winter. So far this year, the gap between Bakken and WTI prices has narrowed, and once again, the Bakken price has risen above the WTI price, albeit modestly (Figure 1). West Texas Intermediate prices are...

One of two new refineries being built in North Dakota broke ground this week. The 20,000-barrel-per-day (bbl/d) Dakota Prairie facility is scheduled to be built in 20 months. The impetus for the state's second and third refineries is the rapid increase in demand for diesel fuel and kerosene for trucking and industrial use within the state. Much of the increase in demand has been fueled by the boom in crude oil production from the new wells in the Bakken Formation in North Dakota's northwest corner. The demand for these middle distillates rose 80% in North Dakota from 2009 to 2012,...

It's no secret that North Dakota has been in the middle of an oil boom since about 2008, but a new chart from the North Dakota Industrial Commission, Department of Mineral Resources, shows just how steep the increase has been. As of 2006, the state was only producing about 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day, putting it on par with other mid-tier oil producing states like Kansas, Colorado and Montana. But new hydraulic fracturing techniques and the opening of the massive Bakken formation to drilling changed all that, and as of January 2013 the state was producing an average...

EIA thinks technology will continue to drive production in 2013, but peak by ’14 - - - - - The current boom in unconventional oil will eventually become a powerful echo, but only after technological improvements have run their course, according to a U.S. Energy Information Administration analysis of the drivers behind domestic crude oil production. When that “inflection point” occurs will depend on many factors, but the report from the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy suggests it could be felt as soon as 2014. Between 2011 and 2012, domestic oil production increased by 790,000 barrels per...

As lawmakers debate whether North Dakota’s oil taxes need tweaking, a recent study suggests the state sits in the middle of major oil-producing states when it comes to oil taxation. The Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would reduce the state’s oil extraction tax rate from 6.5 to 4.5 percent, despite strong objections from Democrats who argue the tax cut is unnecessary. The lower rate approved in Senate Bill 2336 would take effect for new oil wells drilled starting in 2017, or if the average statewide daily production exceeds 1 million barrels per day for three consecutive months,...

The North Dakota Senate snuffed out a measure Wednesday aimed at curbing the oil industry’s practice of wasting natural gas as an unwanted byproduct of oil production. The bill, arguably the toughest to date against the oil industry in North Dakota, was defeated 34-13. Sen. Tim Mathern’s measure would have cut an exemption commonly used by oil companies claiming an economic hardship of connecting a well to a natural gas pipeline. Oil companies in North Dakota can flare natural gas for a year without paying taxes or royalties on it. After that, companies can request an extension because of the...

Energy: The former Golden State is floating in debt, even as it sits on two-thirds of America's shale oil reserves locked in a formation four times the size of the one that sparked North Dakota's economic boom. North Dakota is now the largest oil producer in the country after Texas with a monthly oil output of about 20 million barrels. North Dakota's oil boom accounts for 11% of U.S. oil production, and it is the impetus behind the state's $3.8 billion surplus and an unemployment rate of just 3.2%, the lowest in the nation. California is not running a surplus,...

This incredible picture from space shows how the U.S. oil industry has boomed to such an extent that a gas field now burns as brightly as a major city. The rapid increase in shale oil production means it is now often more economical to 'flare off' unwanted gas than to sell it. As a result, one field in North Dakota, the state leading the energy revolution, is now burning off enough gas to power all the homes in Chicago and Washington D.C. combined. In a recently released satellite image from NASA, the light being given off at the Bakken formation,...

Oil Guru Destroys All Of The Hype About America's Energy Boom Rob WileJan. 20, 2013, 10:20 AM Not everyone believes the U.S. is capable of becoming energy independent thanks to its shale oil and gas reserves, as the International Energy Association suggested recently. The math just doesn't work out, they say — America consumes too much. But some are even more skeptical than that. Arthur Berman, an oil analyst with Labyrinth Consulting Services, says the promise of America's shale reserves have been vastly overstated. His main argument: shale is too expensive to drill, and shale wells usually don't last longer...

North Dakota has now recorded back-to-back months in which the massive Bakken petroleum system has failed to live up to production expectations. Reasons behind lackluster performances in October and especially in November have led the state’s top oil man, Lynn Helms, to issue a “wake-up call” for those who believed the good times would continue unabated. “We’ve gotten very used to the increase in production, almost regardless of what was happening out there,” Helms, director of the Department of Mineral Resources, said in a Jan. 11 conference call. For the first time in 19 months, North Dakota’s oil production declined...

The rerouted northern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline between Hardisty and Steele City, Neb., moved back into the spotlight Friday after a report from the state's department of environmental quality said the project would have "minimal" ecological impacts. Republican Gov. Dave Heineman said he would "carefully review" the 2,000page evaluation and make a decision within 30 days. His recommendation would be forwarded to the U.S. State Department, which is expected to issue its final report to President Barack Obama, who rejected an earlier iteration of the 3,460-kilometre TransCanada Corp. pipeline about one year ago. The new report covers the...

Liquids production from the Eagle Ford of South Texas could catch or surpass North Dakota’s output from the Bakken petroleum system in 2013, a recent study by EAI Inc. indicates. Meanwhile, a separate report by Wood Mackenzie projects 2013 capital spending in Eagle Ford will total a whopping $28 billion. “With $28 billion in capex being spent in 2013 and development now in full swing, the excitement in the Eagle Ford and value being extracted from the play continues to exceed expectations,” said Callan McMahon, upstream research analyst for Wood Mackenzie. Behind the Bakken, Eagle Ford is currently the second...

Energy companies behind the oil boom on the Northern Plains are increasingly turning to an industrial-age workhorse - the locomotive - to move their crude to refineries across the U.S., as plans for new pipelines stall and existing lines can't keep up with demand. ... The environmental fears carry an ironic twist: Oil trains are gaining popularity in part because of a shortage of pipeline capacity - a problem that has been worsened by environmental opposition to such projects as TransCanada's stalled Keystone XL pipeline. That project would carry Bakken and Canadian crude to the Gulf of Mexico. Wayde Schafer,...

Energy: As the U.S. changes the balance of power by exporting some of its abundant natural gas resources, a Hollywood propaganda film debuts claiming the technology making it possible will poison America's small towns. 'Promised Land," a film that does nothing to alter Hollywood's stereotype of businessmen, particularly energy industry executives, as greedy plunderers of the planet, opens this week in selected theatres. The anti-fracking film is based on a not-true story about well contamination in a small Pennsylvania town with a healthy dose of junk science. As documentary filmmaker Phelim McAleer, who is working on his own documentary, "FrackNation",...

The number of rigs drilling for oil in North Dakota is at the lowest level in a year and a half. The State Department of Mineral Resources reports that just more than 180 rigs were drilling this week... 218 rigs were drilling in western North Dakota’s oil patch in late May...

Right now in Dickinson, North Dakota, the local McDonalds is offering a $300 signing bonus to new employees. You heard that right, with a 7.7% nationwide unemployment rate, and persistently sluggish job growth and wage stagnation, the labor market of this one town in North Dakota is so tight, and employers are so desperate for workers, they’re offering a signing bonus for a job slinging fries. And it’s not just Dickinson, unemployment in the entire state is 3.1%, GDP growth for the state is 7.6%, and housing there is in such short supply that one bedrooms are renting for more...

Finding a solution to North Dakota’s ballooning gas-flaring problem will require a “very difficult balancing act” that could take until the end of the decade to work out. “We have to balance the ability to build gathering systems against the waste that takes place with flaring,” Lynn Helms, director of the state’s Department of Mineral Resources, said in a Nov. 20 Webcast. “So we’re looking at toward the end of this decade before we really get this flaring dynamic under control.” Gas production continues to increase at a faster rate than the more desirable crude oil, setting yet another production...