Oil production still high
Oil production hasn’t stopped in North Dakota, despite the dropping price of crude. Tom Rolfstad with the Williston Department of Economic Development says companies aren’t expanding right night, but they’re also not cutting back. The number of oil rigs in North Dakota was expected to climb to 100 by the end of the year, according to North Dakota Petroleum Council President Ron Ness.

Natural gas pipeline gets support
The state Industrial Commission wants the Public Service Commission to decide against it having jurisdiction over the site of the Prairie Rose pipeline, to speed up its development. A subsidiary of a Houston company wants to build the natural gas line from Palermo to Towner in northwestern North Dakota.

The new pipeline would hook up with the existing Alliance line that carries natural gas from western Canada to Chicago. State Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms says the line needs to be built as quickly as possible to prevent the wasting of more than 21 million cubic feet of natural gas each day.

Otter Tail purchasing wind project
Otter Tail Power Co. can buy part of a Luverne wind project near Valley City, state regulators say. The Luverne project has a 157-megawatt generation capability and was proposed by M-Power LLC of Finley; M-Power has been selling ownership to local investors.

Otter Tail is buying 49.5 megawatts of production, including 33 turbines. The project will be the fi rst communitybased wind development in North Dakota, said Public Service Commissioner Tony Clark.

Drilling to hit record high
The state may set a record for drilling permits in 2008, according to the assistant director of the state Industrial Commission’s oil and gas divisions.

Bruce Hicks told the commission the agency will issue more than 1,100 permits in 2008; the previous high was set in 1981. There are 93 rigs producing 178,000 barrels of oil a day in western North Dakota, according to Lynn Helms, state mineral resources director.

Recoverable oil estimates rise
The government recently estimated that 200 million barrels of oil can be recovered in the Williston Basin in North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. That’s compared with a 1995 estimate of 150 million barrels using technology at that time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The estimate is separate of the Bakken shale formation assessment, completed in April, which said up to 4.3 billion barrels of oil could be recovered from that area.

North Dakota wind center to double in size
Basin Electric Power Cooperative announced it will join with FPL Energy to expand the Wilton Wind Energy Center. The center will double in size in the next two years, said Ron Harper, CEO and general manager of the cooperative.

There are 33 wind turbines in Wilton that began operating in 2006. Basin is also in the process of developing an additional 300 megawatts of wind generation in both Dakotas, Harper said. The company also has two coal-based power plants being developed: Dry Fork Station and one in Selby, S.D.

South Dakota pipeline task force cannot regulate
A pipeline task force created by the South Dakota Legislature was told recently that it cannot regulate construction and operation of interstate pipelines. The state can ask the federal government for that authority, said state lawyer John Smith, lead counsel for the Public Utilities Commission.

The PUC has the authority to decide the Trans-Canada Keystone Pipeline route, but cannot regulate design and construction of the pipeline through North Dakota, Smith said. The pipeline will run from Alberta to refi neries in Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma.

Proposal deals with precious minerals
Surface owners who have land above deposits of precious minerals such as uranium would get more protection under a law the Industrial Commission agreed to propose to the Legislature. The bill would provide similar protections given to surface owners who have land above oil, natural gas and coal deposits, said Lynn Helms, the director of the Department of Mineral Resources.

Minerals are not covered under that law. The law would give landowners the right to request environmental inspections from the department of health as well as require mineral owners to notify the landowner of any drilling activity 20 days prior and compensate the landowner for any damages among others.

Other minerals that could be mined in North Dakota and would be covered under the legislation include germanium, which is used in solar panels, potash, an ingredient in fertilizer, and salt, which hasn’t been mined in North Dakota since 1989, Helms said. State geologist Ed Murphy said three companies have expressed interest in mining for uranium in Billings County and Slope County.

Pipeline Authority seeks study
The North Dakota Pipeline Authority received proposals for a study that will investigate the feasibility of a third-party pipeline company interconnecting with either TransCanada’s Keystone or Keystone XL pipelines.

 The goals are to determine whether the pipeline system can be economically constructed and operated, as well as determining the timeline of the project and proposed route. The study is scheduled to be completed by the end of March 2009. – Briefs compiled by Business Watch staff and from the Associated Press