Even though oil prices have been falling,
North Dakota's oil production continues to rise.
The state Department of Mineral Resources reports on Tuesday
that North Dakota oil producers pumped an average of 639,000
barrels of oil each day in May.
That adds up to almost 20 million barrels of oil for the month.
Production rose almost 5 percent from April's output. The number
of producing oil wells went up more than 3 percent. There are more
than 6,700 wells in western North Dakota.
North Dakota's oil-producing region has almost twice as many
wells as it had five years ago, and oil production has increased
fivefold.
In the last three months the benchmark price of West Texas
Intermediate crude has dropped from more than $100 a barrel to
about $84.