Petroleum and Natural Gas

There are some things that just go together – like ketchup and fries, or thunder and lightning. Oil and natural gas go together too. Where you find oil in North Dakota, you’ll usually find natural gas.

North Dakota is home to the Bakken Formation, the largest continuous oil deposit in the U.S. More than 12,000 wells are used to get that oil – and natural gas – out of the ground. And over the 40+ years a well is in operation, it can generate:

  • Natural gas
  • About 765,000 barrels of oil
  • More than $5 million in taxes
  • Approximately $2.1 million in wages and salaries

Each drilling rig creates about 120 direct and indirect jobs.

An oil rig.  Photo courtesy of Wyoming Casing Service.

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JUST THE FACTS

    The Blue Flame

There are 23 natural gas processing plants in North Dakota. This is where the gas is cleaned and converted into products such as propane, fertilizer or liquefied natural gas. Sometimes the gas is used to power machinery at the well. At some wells, if pipelines or infrastructure are not in place, the natural gas is “flared,” which means it’s burned off.

    Trucks, Rails and Pipelines

There’s more to oil and natural gas than just getting it out of the ground. It has to be moved from the well to the refinery – and sometimes those refineries can be thousands of miles away. That’s why trucks, trains and pipelines and the people who operate them are a big part of the industry.

In North Dakota, there are 27 pipelines covering 18,000 miles – enough pipes to crisscross the state 53 times! Each pipeline requires workers to help take care of it.

    From Crude to Refined

There’s a lot of chemistry involved in turning crude oil into useful substances such as diesel, jet fuel and gasoline. Refineries in North Dakota employ chemical and petroleum engineers to oversee the processing.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

ENERGY: Powered by North Dakota (North Dakota Studies) – Petroleum and Natural Gas
Great Plains Energy Corridor - Petroleum
Great Plains Energy Corridor – Natural Gas

Turn on a light in your home – and there’s a pretty good chance that the electricity powering that light was generated using coal. One type of coal is called lignite. North Dakota is home to the second-largest lignite deposit in the world – an 800+ year supply!

Mining lignite is big business in North Dakota and a significant source of tax revenue. In 2014, companies paid about $100 million in taxes.

Nearly 4,000 people work directly in the industry, while another 11,000 are indirectly employed. Jobs of all kinds can be found in the coal industry – from lineworkers to mining engineers to environmental scientists.

Photo of Antelope Valley Station near Beulah is courtesy of Basin Electric Power Cooperative.

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    Top Wages

People in the lignite industry earn some of the highest wages in North Dakota.

Oliver and Mercer Counties (home to three coal mines and five power plants) are among the top counties with the highest average wages in the state.

In 2012, mining salaries in Mercer County averaged $90,000.

    Cleaning It Up

Between 1,500 and 2,000 acres of land are mined for coal and reclaimed each year in North Dakota.

Mining companies spend an average of $30,000 to reclaim one acre of land. They spread soil and seed the land. Reclamation specialists are the brains behind the reclamation – to ensure all regulations are met and that reclaimed land is as good as or better than it was before mining.

    Moving Ahead

Innovation is happening all the time in the lignite industry.

Great River Energy patented a process called “DryFining” which makes coal burn more efficiently and more cleanly.

The Great Plains Synfuels Plant is the only commercial-scale plant in the U.S. that manufactures natural gas (and many other byproducts) from lignite.

Maybe you’ll invent the next energy-saving innovation!

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

ENERGY: Powered by North Dakota (North Dakota Studies) – Coal
Great Plains Energy Corridor – Lignite
Lignite Energy Council
University of North Dakota Energy and Environmental Research Center

Step outside – and look around. Is it raining? Is it sunny? Is it windy? If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, you’ve seen or felt a potential energy source.

Solar, wind and hydropower are important energy sources within North Dakota. Wind turbines in North Dakota have the potential to power more than 500,000 homes and have no air or water pollution.

In North Dakota solar panels are most frequently used in areas where it is too expensive to install electricity lines. These panels help pump water for cattle.

The biggest (literally) of three energy sources listed here is hydropower. The Garrison Dam and power plant creates electricity by running water from the reservoir through giant turbines.

Photo by Sgt. Brett Miller, North Dakota National Guard Visual Information.

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    Are Those Dinosaurs?

Wind turbines are huge! They can be more than 330 feet high with rotating blades which are 110 feet long.

To make the blades more efficient and reduce the noise (hum) they make, some blades at the Bison Wind Farm use “dino tails” –which have a spiked ridge on the blade.

    Sunny Days!

When you think of sunshine, you may not think of North Dakota. Think again!

North Dakota has more solar potential than many other states – and could provide more solar electricity than Florida during the long summer days.

    You Gotta Love Water!

Maintaining a hydroelectric dam requires a raft of workers – ranging from power plant technicians to electrical and maintenance engineers to energy managers. Most jobs require a minimum of a college certificate or an associate’s degree.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

ENERGY: Powered by North Dakota (North Dakota Studies) -Hydropower
Great Plains Energy Corridor – Hydropower
ENERGY: Powered by North Dakota (North Dakota Studies) -– Solar Power
Great Plains Energy Corridor – Solar Power
ENERGY: Powered by North Dakota (North Dakota Studies) -– Wind Power
Great Plains Energy Corridor -- Wind

What do hot water, hot air and corn have in common? They’re all used to make energy!

Scientists and engineers have been working out ways to create energy using new, innovative methods – while also looking at capturing “waste” energy.

Hot air and hot water are “waste” byproducts of oil and natural gas drilling and transportation. Engineers in North Dakota have designed ways to capture this hot air and water to generate more power.

When a company drills, geologists learn what’ s beneath the earth – and what they’re learning is that in western North Dakota, there’s a lot of potential for geothermal energy (energy pulled from the heat of the rocks miles below the surface).

Looking above the surface, corn is a crop found everywhere! It’s used to make ethanol – a kind of biofuel. North Dakota is home to five ethanol plants which among them have used 156 million bushels of corn to make ethanol.

Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s St. Anthony Heat Recovery Project. Photo courtesy of Basin Electric

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    More Than Hot Air

Turning hot air into energy is what is happening at a natural gas pipeline called the Northern Border Pipeline in North Dakota. The hot air created when the natural gas is compressed is used indirectly to spin a turbine to generate electricity. Technicians, operators and energy managers help keep this power station running.

    Hold the Fries!

Think of that vat of boiling oil used to make your fries – now think of a car. Is there a connection? Yes! And it’s called biodiesel, a renewable fuel made from new and used vegetable oils, animal fat and recycled restaurant grease.

North Dakota grows a lot of canola – some of which is used to produce biodiesel.

    You Can’t Beet This

Research teams at North Dakota State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are exploring ways to use specialized sugar beets to produce biofuels. Just as livestock feed is also produced during ethanol production, other usable products could be created from this use of sugar beets.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

ENERGY: Powered by North Dakota (North Dakota Studies) – Biofuels, Geothermal, Recovered Energy
Great Plains Energy Corridor – Biofuels
Great Plains Energy Corridor -- Geothermal
Great Plains Energy Corridor – Recovered Energy
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