Amazing North Dakota Sets More New Oil Records in August as Production Doubles in Only 26 Months

Oil production in N. Dakota set more monthly records in August:

1. A new record for monthly production: 13,768,395 barrels, a 34.6% increase from last August.  In just a little more than two years (since June 2009), oil production has doubled in North Dakota (see chart above).

2. A new record for average daily production: 444,142 barrels. 

3. A new record number of wells producing: 5,702.

4. New records for barrels per well (per month): 2,415; and per day: 78.

5. A new record for oil-related jobs: 16,200 (see chart), which is more than double the number of North Dakota oil jobs at the beginning of last year. 

At North Dakota's blazing current pace of monthly increases in oil production, the state will be producing more than 560,000 barrels of oil per day by January 2012 and will then pass #3 California (540,000 barrels per day) and #2 Alaska (550,000 barrels per day) to become America's second-largest oil producer.  North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms is even more optimistic and predicts that the Peace Garden State could actually be producing as much as 800,000 barrels per day by the end of this year!

North Dakota's impressive economic success clearly illustrates the huge benefits of domestic energy production: more jobs and the lowest jobless rate in the country, record economic growth, huge gains in personal income, and even more tax revenues.  There's no reason that the economic success and ongoing job creation in North Dakota can't be duplicated elsewhere, if more U.S. land and off-shore areas were opened up to domestic energy exploration and drilling.  Drill, drill, drill = jobs, jobs, jobs.