Oil Bouncing Back

It's been a roller-coaster 12 months for andamp;lt;a href=andamp;quot;http://www.kxnet.com/t/nort...  More »

It's been a roller-coaster 12 months for andamp;lt;a href=andamp;quot;http://www.kxnet.com/t/north-dakotaandamp;quot; class=andamp;quot;kxInlineLinkandamp;quot;andamp;gt;North Dakotaandamp;lt;/aandamp;gt;'s andamp;lt;a href=andamp;quot;http://www.kxnet.com/t/oilandamp;quot; class=andamp;quot;kxInlineLinkandamp;quot;andamp;gt;oilandamp;lt;/aandamp;gt; fields. Last July, prices were over $140 a barrel. Early this year, the price dipped below $30. Today, oil is back to over $60 - at levels it hasn't seen since November. The president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council says the price drop did cut into the number of companies doing business here and sliced as many as one thousand jobs from the oil patch. Ron Ness says oil companies won't be racing back to the andamp;lt;a href=andamp;quot;http://www.kxnet.com/t/bakken-oil-formationandamp;quot; class=andamp;quot;kxInlineLinkandamp;quot;andamp;gt;Bakkenandamp;lt;/aandamp;gt; formation oil fields in North Dakota until the price has stabilized. But Ness says the oil activity is slowly increasing. There are 36 rigs drilling in North Dakota right now far from the high of 98 in November. (Ron Ness) andamp;quot;We've seen a drastic decline in first four months of 2009 - lost 65% of drilling rigs and I would estimate saw over 1,000 employees laid off. Rising crude oil prices now are a positive for oil activity in ND, it's going to take a higher oil price to make Bakken economic.andamp;quot; Ness says even with an increase in oil activity, it will be hard to match 2008's success when the state saw a 73% jump in oil production over 2007.  « Less