Thank you for your continued interest in the activity of the ND Association of Oil and Gas Producing Counties.

We hope that you will find this week's News From the NDAOGPC as a valuable source of information.

Remember that registration for the 2014 NDAOGPC Annual Meeting set for September 18, 2014 in Williston is now open. More details on room blocks and meeting details are available below, or you can check out the registration page on the NDAOGPC website, www.ndenergy.org. 

Members of the interim Taxation Committee met this week, Wednesday, July 30, at the State Capitol in Bismarck. The committee continued its review of several bill drafts related to property tax reform, though another important topic was also heard.

Michael Ziesch, Job Service North Dakota, shows a breakdown of which cities in the state have higher percentages of people employed in the oil and gas sector.

Michael Ziesch, Bureau of Labor Statistics Manager for Job Service North Dakota, presented a report on the state's oil and gas employment. The study was done at the behest of the 2013 Legislative Assembly, which appropriated $120,000 to Job Service ND "for the purpose of upgrading collection and use of employment data to correctly identify all employees who should be included for statistical purposes in oil and gas-related employment."

Ziesch explained that the study found that of the 359,415 jobs in North Dakota in 2013, 15.3% or 55,137 are attributable to oil and gas related employment. He also noted that those oil and gas industry jobs represent 28.5% of total wages earned in the state. That equates to $5 billion of the total $17.5 billion in wages.

Oil and gas industry employment, Ziesch said, was broken into five subcategories: 1) Oil and gas drilling, extraction, production, and refining (the direct industry jobs); 2) Infrastructure development (like pipe layers, pad builders, etc); 3) Professional services (such as lawyers and accountants specifically working on oil and gas interests); 4) Transportation (including truck drivers and pipeline operators); and 5) Wholesale trade and manufacturing (including manufacturing of oil and gas-specific parts and machinery).

Job Service ND used the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) to code employer's business activity for each worksite in the state. Those codes were used to distinguish oil and gas direct and related jobs in the study. Ziesch pointed out that the universe for the job count is private (non-government) sector jobs covered by Unemployment Insurance in North Dakota. Consequently, many of those in the farming and ranching industries were not counted in the data.

Because of the NAICS code system used to classify jobs, oil and gas-related employment such as that within crew camps and hotels were not able to be included, though several committee members understood those sectors to be in the "related" category. Since hotels and crew camps are considered "lodging", it was difficult to include them in the oil and gas employment numbers, Ziesch said. He also clarified for the committee that the data that was compiled is based on a place-of-work concept, meaning that the data counted focused on where people work and not where they reside.

It's important to note that these employment figures are for the year 2013. Data for 2014 will be available in the summer of 2015. The five counties with the largest count of oil and gas related jobs in 2013 are: Williams (22,896), Stark (8,374), McKenzie (5,661), Ward (4,364), and Mountrail (3,945).

The largest natural gas company operating in western North Dakota has announced another major processing plant project that will equal the size of the largest it has planned for construction in the state.

Tulsa, Okla.-based Oneok Partners executives gathered in Memorial Hall in the state Capitol on Wednesday to announce plans for a new 200-million-cubic-feet-per-day natural gas processing plant.

The announcement was the second in nine months of a major natural gas plant project by Oneok.

Click here to continue reading Smith's story. 

Governor Jack Dalrymple sets the stage for a major processing plant expansion announcement by ONEOK.

ONEOK Partners LP announced Wednesday it plans to invest between $606 and $785 million to build a natural gas processing facility in McKenzie County.

The Demicks Lake plant will process 200 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. It is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2016.

Gov. Jack Dalrymple joined executives from the Oklahoma-based ONEOK in the announcement.

A natural gas processing company will build another plant in the state, right in the heart of the oil boom. ONEOK's Demicks Lake Natural Gas Processing Facility will process 200 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. The plant will be 15 miles northeast of Watford City.

"It's in the heart of a lot of development. And so we tend to build these plants in the area where of course the gas is being developed, and that's in the fairway of a lot of activity," says ONEOK CEO Terry Spencer.

"And it is all part of our very ambitious goal to capture 90 percent of all of our natural gas within the next 6 years," says Gov. Jack Dalrymple.

The project could cost up to $785 million, and is expected to be ready towards the end of 2016.

At this point in time, there are conflicting reports about the volatility of Bakken crude oil.

So, the North Dakota Petroleum Council has commissioned a study to develop a standard for the makeup of a Bakken Barrel.

But, its findings could also reveal even more about crude oil safety.

Earlier this month Governor Dalrymple asked Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms to take a look at oil conditioning practices.

Oil conditioning uses temperature and pressure to separate water and gases from the crude oil itself-- making the oil less volatile and safer for transport.

Members of the Industrial Commission want to take a deeper look at data that could establish a benchmark standard for Bakken crude oil.

Turner, Mason and Company completed a study that was commissioned by the North Dakota Petroleum Council, and results were released at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference this year. The study analyzed 152 samples from 15 well sites and seven rail-loading facilities.

"The initial goal of the report was to try to create something like WTI, some set of parameters if you buy a Bakken Barrel or you haul a Bakken barrel in your truck or this is what's in your pipe or this is what's going to come in through the gate of your refinery," says Lynn Helms of the Department of Mineral Resources.