North Dakota · Oil · Month by month
Bakken Pulse
North Dakota's oil output, the wells reporting oil, the gas they flare and what the crude sells for, one month at a time, from public records. Statewide oil and prices come from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Wells and flaring come from the state's free monthly production reports.
Oil and prices EIA, through August 2026, released October 30, 2026 Wells and flaring NDIC Monthly Production Reports, through August 2026 Page built November 8, 2026
This month
North Dakota produced 1,164,258 barrels of oil a day in August 2026, against a record of 1,519,033 in November 2019.
Oil, 1981 to today
North Dakota's crude oil production in barrels a day, every month since 1981. The Bakken and Three Forks wells drilled since 2008 account for the rise; the figures are statewide and include every pool. Move along the chart, or focus it and use the arrow keys, to read any month.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, North Dakota Field Production of Crude Oil and U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil, monthly, converted from thousand barrels to barrels a day. EIA revises recent months; the newest months are the most likely to change.
Table: yearly averages
Wells reporting oil
How many wells reported oil in each month's report. Output today is close to where it was in late 2014, but many more wells share it. Each month a few hundred newer wells are confidential and their volumes are withheld; they are counted separately in the tooltip and the table.
Source: the North Dakota Industrial Commission's free Monthly Production Reports, as first reported, January 2003 to August 2026. Until April 2015 the reports are PDF prints that list wells in unitized pools only inside a unit total with a well count; those counts, producing or not, are added, so the two sides of the break are not exactly comparable. From May 2015 the workbooks list every well.
Table: by year
Flared share of reported gas
The share of the gas in each month's report that operators flared instead of selling or using it. The workbooks print flared gas from May 2015; the earlier PDF reports do not.
This is not the state's gas capture rate. The Industrial Commission's capture rate also credits gas used on the lease and other approved uses, which the reports do not show, and its capture targets (74 percent from October 2014, rising in steps to 91 percent from November 2020) apply to that rate. Confidential wells are left out here because their volumes are withheld.
Source: NDIC Monthly Production Reports (workbooks), flared gas divided by gas produced over the wells that report both, as first reported.
Table: by year
What North Dakota crude sells for
The average price paid for North Dakota crude oil when it is first sold, in dollars a barrel, not adjusted for inflation.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, North Dakota Crude Oil First Purchase Price, monthly.
Table: yearly averages
What this page counts
Two public sources
- Oil and prices: the U.S. Energy Information Administration's monthly state series. EIA data is a U.S. government work in the public domain (EIA copyright and reuse).
- Wells and flaring: the North Dakota Industrial Commission's free Monthly Production Reports, the same files behind the viewer's playback and the well index. Values are as first reported; the Division does not revise past reports.
Why the oil total does not come from the state's reports
The monthly reports withhold the volumes of confidential wells, which are mostly new wells producing at their highest rates. Added up, the printed volumes have run 2 to 13 percent below EIA's statewide figure since May 2015, about 7 percent in a typical month, so this page takes statewide oil from EIA and uses the reports only for what they measure well: how many wells report and how much of the reported gas is flared.
Limits
- Statewide figures cover every North Dakota pool, not only the Bakken and Three Forks.
- The newest months are the most likely to be revised, by EIA and by operators' later filings.
- Nothing here is a forecast, an estimate of reserves or advice. It is not an official record of the State of North Dakota.
Updates and data
The page is rebuilt after the state posts each monthly report and EIA releases its monthly state figures, about two months after the month they describe. Every number on the page is in the data file, with each source's address, release date and checksum. Releases are listed on the What's new page.