North Dakota
Halt in drilling by one of North Dakota’s largest oil producers expected to bring layoffs
BISMARCK — A stop to oil drilling in North Dakota by one of the largest producers in the state will likely lead to layoffs but is “nothing new” to the industry, experts said.
Harold Hamm, founder of Continental Resources, said his company plans to
stop drilling in North Dakota’s Bakken formation for the first time in 30 years
because of low crude oil prices, according to a Monday, Jan. 19, report.
At a North Dakota Industrial Commission meeting the next day, Gov. Kelly Armstrong said people should understand that Continental is not pulling up stakes in North Dakota.
“To be clear, this isn’t the first time an oil company has laid down rigs on infield drilling locations when they’re at a break-even point. … This happens a lot,” Armstrong said.
Nathan Anderson, director of the state Department of Mineral Resources, said Continental plans to halt its three drilling rigs by the end of February.
“They would evaluate whether they pick up rigs after that, based on where oil production is and where the economics are,” Anderson said at the meeting.
The financial break-even point for oil is anywhere from $50 to $65 a barrel, he said.
WTI crude oil futures extended losses to $59 a barrel on Thursday, Jan. 22, amid mounting evidence of an oversupplied market, an industry publication reported.
Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said operations will continue on the 20,000 producing wells in the state, and this development related to drilling new wells is “nothing new.”
“We’ve had a good run in North Dakota in the Bakken, and it’s going to go through commodity downturns like this. That’s where we’re at today, and it looks like we’re going to be here for a while, possibly,” he told The Forum.
North Dakota is a major player in the U.S. oil industry, ranking third only to Texas and New Mexico, according to industry statistics.
The state relies heavily on tax revenues from the sale of oil and gas to fund vital infrastructure and other projects, so downturns in the market could impact state budgets.
When oil prices and activity levels drop, North Dakota needs to budget accordingly, which was done during the last legislative session,
Anderson said in a previous interview.
Forum file photo
Continental has a big footprint in North Dakota, second only to Chord Energy, headquartered in Houston, the largest operator in the Bakken, Ness said.
Chord has not publicly indicated its plans, he said, while other large companies such as ConocoPhillips, Exxon and Devon Energy might be able to reduce but not halt drilling activity.
Public companies will likely make such announcements at quarterly investor meetings in early to mid-February, he said.
North Dakota is not alone, with all oil basins seeing reductions in activity. Ness said the Permian Basin in Texas, which produces more than 5 million barrels of oil a day, is looking at a 15% drilling reduction.
The state has weathered downturns before, in 2009 and 2015, and in 2020 at the start of COVID-19 pandemic.
Exploration and drilling of new wells, a massive investment for oil companies, is important to the industry because well outputs decline over time, Ness said.
There are about 30 rigs drilling new wells currently in the state, a number that will begin to decline in the weeks to come with Continental’s moves, and possible reductions by other companies.
“They’re just pacing their new investments for a while, until they feel that outlook is better. A lot of people don’t want that oil produced at $45 to $50. They feel that oil’s worth $75 to $90 a barrel. If you produce it, you’ve got to sell it,” he said.
Forum News Service file photo
While it still takes tens of thousands of people to produce North Dakota’s typical 1.1 million barrels of oil each day, the exploration and drilling side of the industry employs the highest number of people, Ness said.
That workforce tends to be more transient, coming from all over the country and the world, he said, and is where there will likely be layoffs or consolidations, impacts that could be felt by March.
“It certainly is, hopefully, just a short term ramification of news like this,” he said.
FARGO, N.D. (KELO) — The Sioux Falls Stampede staved off elimination with a 2-1 overtime win over the Fargo Force in game four of the USHL Western Conference Finals Saturday night.
Thomas Zocco scored the game-winner 12 minutes into the extra period. Arseni Marchenko put Fargo on the board first in the first period. Noah Mannausau tied the game for the Herd in the second period.
Sioux Falls outshot Fargo 53-49, including 9-5 in overtime. Linards Feldbergs made 48 saves.
Three of the four games of the series have gone to overtime. The winner-take-all game five is Tuesday at the Premier Center.
New ballot measure guide to be mailed to North Dakota voters ahead of election
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BISMARCK (North Dakota Monitor) — A federal district court judge indicated he will nullify a nearly $28 million judgment against the federal government related to costs North Dakota incurred during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests so the parties can reach a settlement.
North Dakota is still set to receive a payment Attorney General Drew Wrigley described as satisfactory, but attorneys would not disclose the amount during a Friday hearing.
Attorneys for the United States and North Dakota said the settlement would allow the parties to avoid litigating the case in appeals court,putting the nearly seven-year-old lawsuit to rest.
“We’re hoping we really don’t need to fight any further,” Department of Justice attorney Jonathan Guynn said during the hearing.
The lawsuit, filed in 2019, concerns demonstrations against the construction of the crude oil pipeline, also known as DAPL, that took place in rural south-central North Dakota in 2016 and 2017.
North Dakota claims the federal government caused the protests to grow in size and intensity by unlawfully allowing demonstrators to camp on federal land. The state says it had to pay millions of dollars on policing and cleaning up the encampments as a result. The United States denies the state’s allegations.
North Dakota U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Traynor in April 2025 sided with the state and ordered the executive branch to pay North Dakota the $28 million sum, a decision the U.S. Department of Justice later appealed to the 8th Circuit.
If the settlement moves forward, North Dakota would receive a “substantial monetary payment” from the United States, attorneys said Friday. As a condition of the agreement, the Department of Justice wants Traynor’s judgment and three other orders in which he ruled against the United States to be voided. That includes the court’s 120-page ruling from April 2025.
Both parties said Friday that having the rulings nullified wouldn’t have a significant negative impact on the public, since the documents could still be cited even if they no longer hold the weight of court orders.
At the same time, Guynn said the Department of Justice wants the orders vacated because it doesn’t want the legal conclusions Traynor made to influence the outcome of future lawsuits.
“The downstream consequences of keeping these on the books is troublesome for the United States,” he said during the hearing. If Traynor does not agree to axe the rulings, the United States would likely no longer be willing to settle and move forward with its appeal instead, Guynn added.
Traynor’s orders make findings about the federal government’s responsibility under the Federal Tort Claims Act — the law North Dakota filed the suit under — which the state noted previously in court filings “could have utility holding the federal government to account” in the future.
Still, attorneys for the state said they believe this trade-off is outweighed by the time and money the public would save by not going through the appeals process. North Dakota would also avoid the risk of having Traynor’s judgment overturned by higher courts.
Wrigley said the settlement will be made public once it’s finalized.
The United States’ appeal of Traynor’s decision has been on hold since last summer, when the state and federal government informed the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals they had started settlement negotiations and wished to pause the case.
The 8th Circuit will have to first send the case back to Traynor before he could grant the parties’ requests.
The case went to trial in Bismarck in early 2024. During the four-week trial, the court heard from witnesses including former governors Doug Burgum and Jack Dalrymple, Native activists, federal officials and law enforcement.
The Dakota Access Pipeline carries crude oil from northwest North Dakota to Illinois. It crosses the Missouri River just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, which prompted the tribe to begin protesting the pipeline on the grounds that it poses a threat to its water supply and sovereignty.
North Dakota’s lawsuit originally requested $38 million in damages from the federal government. Traynor ordered the executive branch to pay $28 million since the U.S. Department of Justice previously gave the state $10 million as compensation for costs it spent related to the protests.
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