Crude oil production in North Dakota, home to the Bakken shale, is not expected to recover to pre-pandemic levels until late into 2022 due to the demand loss and the growing investor pressure on oil producers regarding environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, Lynn Helms, director of North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources, said this week. “Producers will be stressed from both ends — the investment end due to ESG and the markets end due to the loss of demand,” Helms said on a webinar on Monday, as carried by Bloomberg . North Dakota’s oil and gas producers curtailed production in the spring and summer in response to the crash in oil demand and oil prices. North Dakota’s crude oil production plunged by 41.6 percent between December 2019 and May 2020, from 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) at the end of last year to just 900,000 bpd in […]