North Dakota's crude oil production continues to set records as February's output was pegged at averaging 558,254 barrels per day, up from the previous record of 546,318 in January, according to the state's Department of Mineral Resources.
In the latest figures available, the February output shows a 60 percent increase from the 348,777 barrels a day the state produced in February 2011 and up 114 percent from the 261,376 barrels a day produced in February 2010.
In January, North Dakota overtook California to become the third-largest-producing state behind Texas and Alaska.
Meanwhile, Alaska's crude oil production continued to fall, to an average of 582,237 barrels per day in February, down more than 10,000 barrels a day from January, said Stephen McMains, statistician for Alaska's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
"It's going down every month," McMains said.
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North Dakota is on the opposite trend line of Alaska and California, which both are seeing production slide.
Lynn Helms, director of North Dakota's mineral resources department and the state's chief regulator of the oil industry, said Wednesday in his monthly "Director's Cut," that more crews doing the hydraulic fracturing process needed in the Bakken and Three Forks "tight rock" shale formations moved into the state in February, aided by the mild winter weather.
Many of the crews are coming in from natural gas fields around the nation, partly because natural gas prices are so low, it's inhibiting production.
The "idle well" count in North Dakota fell in February, with about 240 wells drilled, but still waiting the "fracking" crew to blast the shale formation two miles below the surface to get the sweet crude oil flowing into the well pipe.
There were 210 drilling rigs operating in the state Thursday, also a record number.
Meanwhile, North Dakota's production of natural gas, a byproduct of the oil production, also set a record in February of 601,292 MCF (thousand cubic feet) per day, up from 572,206 MCF in January, according to Helms.
Because February had two fewer days than January, however, monthly totals for both crude oil and gas actually were down in February over January.
There still is enough capacity via pipeline, rail and truck to move the state's oil to market, Helms says.
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But growing concern about whether new pipelines soon will be built and the ongoing bottleneck of supplies at Cushing, Okla.,is contributing to a steep discount slapped on North Dakota crude, to the tune of 25 percent off the New York futures prices for the benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude, according to Helms.
Which means that while West Texas crude futures prices were just above $100 a barrel this week, North Dakota's sweet crude was garnering only about $76 a barrel, according to Helms.
There were 6,726 wells producing oil in February, another state record, over the 6,624 in January. Some of the wells have been producing for decades, but 95 percent of the drilling of new wells continues to be into the Bakken and Three Forks formations which have fueled the boom the past five years in which daily oil output has quintupled.
In that time, the state's oil production has gone from being equal to about 1 percent of the nation's production to about 10 percent as North Dakota has become the third-largest producer among states', behind only Texas and Alaska.
In fact, based on production trends in both Alaska and North Dakota - which has, in the past year, averaged a monthly increase of more than 17,000 barrels in average daily output - it appears this month North Dakota likely will surpass second-place Alaska in oil production.
Texas produces more than 1 million barrels of oil per day.
