Crude oil production in North Dakota could peak over the next five years as producers will have drilled up the core production areas and will have to move to less prolific corners of the oil patch, North Dakota’s Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms told state lawmakers. Exploration and production companies will finish drilling the core areas in North Dakota’s oil patch in the next two to five years, Helms said at a meeting of the interim Government Finance Committee. “At that point, say five years from now, the drilling has to move out into the non-core areas, and that will yield lower producing wells,” said Helms, as carried by Grand Forks Herald. Producers will find it much more difficult to increase crude oil production from the non-core drilling areas, he said, noting that “We can now see that horizon from here.” According to Ron Ness, President of the North […]