BISMARCK --North Dakota's booming Oil Patch produced a record 152.9 million barrels of sweet crude in 2011, up more than 35 percent from the previous record of 113 million set a year earlier, the state Industrial Commission reported Wednesday.
State records show North Dakota also produced a record 155.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas in 2011, up from 113 billion cubic feet the year before.
"We've really had a phenomenal growth rate and this blows previous years' gains out of the water," said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, a trade group representing more than 200 oil companies.
The state's Williston Basin, which also includes areas in Montana and Canada, is the hottest play in North American oil production.
The state has set oil production records each year since 2004, when production was pegged at 31.1 million barrels, the state Industrial Commission said.
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"Many billions of dollars" of infrastructure improvements such as pipelines and rail facilities have been done since then to exploit the rich Bakken and Three Forks formations in western North Dakota, Ness said.
"We're now able to move more oil and produce more oil with fewer impacts," Ness said.
Ness and Justin Kringstad, director of the state Pipeline Authority, said North Dakota's unseasonably warm winter has helped boost oil production, allowing for more favorable working conditions.
"The mild winter has been a big windfall for the industry as a whole," Kringstad said, according to The Associated Press.
North Dakota produced an average of 534,884 barrels of oil daily in December, up from 344,122 in December 2010. The state had 6,565 producing oil wells in December, 1,210 more wells than in December 2010.
The state's production is nearing that of California and Alaska, the number three and number two highest-producing states behind Texas, which produces about 1.1 million barrels a day.
California and Alaska each produce around 550,000 barrels a day, so North Dakota's production is on course to best them within a month or two, at the recent pace.
The state Industrial Commission reported Wednesday that 202 rigs were drilling in the state, up from 165 a year ago, but about where the rig count has been since September.
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However, the big increase in supply has also slackened demand for the sweet crude from North Dakota's Bakken.
According to Bloomberg News Wednesday, the discount applied to North Dakota crude was the biggest since at least 2010, at $5 to $27 per barrel off the benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude price Wednesday afternoon.
North Dakota sweet crude was fetching about $83 a barrel this week, up from about $78 this time last year, while West Texas benchmark price was at about $98.
Forbes Magazine's online edition also reported Wednesday on the boom, saying western North Dakota has the fastest job growth in the nation.
"Podunk towns like Williston and Watford City are growing so rapidly that construction crews can't build homes fast enough to shelter the swelling population," Forbes reported, winning no friends in the Oil Patch.
Williston Mayor Ward Koeser says the unemployment rate in Williams County, which includes Williston as the county seat, is 0.9 percent, about nine times better - as in less - than the national rate.
