Wayde Schafer of the Sierra Club says oil companies should slow their oil production and invest in the infrastructure needed to capture more natural gas.
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In return for extending by 10 months a January 1 target, state regulators have implemented a stiffer long-term benchmark.
Environmentalists oppose any extension and note the volume of gas flared in the state continues to rise as more oil wells are drilled, despite the best intentions of existing regulations.
Industry officials said impediments to gas collection included regulatory delays to construct Hess Corp and Oneok pipelines, as well as technological advancements fueling a 16 percent spike in natural gas production.
Under the commission’s mandate, producers face production curtailment penalties if they fail to meet these flaring reduction benchmarks. “We’re not moving the goalposts”.
The three-member commission includes North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem and Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring, .
With the current $45 per barrel oil market, the industry was asking for a two-year extension to meet the year-end 85 percent capture goal.
The chairwoman of the Dakota Resource Council, a group of landowners and concerned citizens, issued a statement saying it’s “embarrassing” that North Dakota will remain so far behind the national flaring average of 1 percent.
“If you were to extrapolate this out, I think that we better be really aware of the fact that this could cause some significant problems for our next budget”.
The commission also passed a gas capture credit system, crediting companies who have exceeded capture goals up to 90 days if they were to fall below future goals.
He and Dille said the industry needs help obtaining easements and right-of-way, referring to two pipelines that would remove 6 percent of the total gas being flared but have been delayed or canceled because of hurdles with federal agencies and landowners.
The oil rigs in North Dakota are vanishing, a sign that the slide in oil prices is taking a big toll.
“There’s a lot of states that wouldn’t think 90 percent is all that great, so we’ve got to talk about the extended picture, too”, he said.
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Tax revenues in North Dakota fell $47 million short of projections in August as the number of oil drilling rigs continues to tumble down due to low crude prices. “I guess I was wrong”.
