North Dakota’s oil regulators said on Monday they may allow more wells to be temporarily abandoned, a step that would permit producers to delay fracking beyond the typical one-year window and prevent even more crude from flooding onto global markets. The change would fuel massive savings for oil producers in the state who have amassed a backlog of almost 1,000 wells that have been drilled but not completed with processes needed to get the oil flowing. The delays are designed solely to ride out the roughly 50 percent drop in crude prices since last year. Any regulatory change in North Dakota also would assuage market concerns about supply continuing to outstrip demand at a time when Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members show little sign of curbing their own output. While no decision has been reached, the North Dakota Department of Mineral […]