Drilling activity in the Bakken is feeling the effects of a bearish crude oil market. The drop in crude oil prices in recent months has likely gone uncelebrated in the North Dakota town of Williston, or in the state as a whole, as exploration and production companies reduce or halt their drilling activity in the Bakken, that vast shale formation underlying North Dakota and neighboring Montana. But how much has the state’s drilling activity been affected, and how long is the slowdown likely to last? The abrupt arrival of sub-$50 oil prices has been a shock to the oil industry, and the subsequent decline in drilling activity in the Bakken could, if continued, prove painful for a state that had until recently been riding high as an oil producing state and an economic powerhouse. Between 2006 and 2013, North Dakota went from being the ninth-largest oil producing state to […]