Besides crude, North Dakota's shale wells are producing prodigious quantities of natural gas, much of which is being flared off because of the lack of gas-gathering pipelines and infrastructure across the vast empty spaces of the northern plains, prompting bitter complaints about wasting energy and greenhouse emissions.

Widespread flaring is clearly visible in colour-enhanced satellite images from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and has sparked a string of critical articles in the Christian Science Monitor ("Thanks to North Dakota, US waste of natural gas grows rapidly"), New York Times ("In North Dakota, flames of wasted natural gas light the prairie") and other publications.