State energy leader previews Trump era energy policy
Steve Hallstrom
Special to The Farmer
Lynn Helms is enjoying the first few months of retirement after serving 26 years as the chair of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources.
He began his term in 1998, and played a crucial role as the state went from under 100,000 barrels per day to more than 1 million. Recent production numbers from the state’s industrial commission peg the current production at just under 1.2 million barrels per day.
Recently, Helms looked ahead to what a second Trump administration could bring to the country’s energy supply in a radio visit with Scott Hennen on The Flag - KTGO Radio (AM 1090/FM 92.7). He began by talking about how the state and the nation blew away many expectations as the industry became more efficient and sophisticated.
“We saw one urban myth, after another, fall. I remember how oil production in the U.S. had supposedly peaked in the seventies with the opening of Prudhoe Bay (Alaska) and that we would never see that level again. But what they didn’t realize was that our level of understanding of the geology in North America and how to extract hydrocarbons would just grow and grow and grow. So now we’ve surpassed that peak and we’re looking at a plateau well above peak oil from 1979. So that’s just one urban myth that we knocked down. And it goes on and on. When I think about the shale boom and what North Dakotans did to make that happen and then exported it to Wyoming and Colorado and New Mexico and Texas, it literally changed the world.”
Wyoming oil production has been a key story in the nation’s energy supply. The state, in 2023, produced 96.8 million barrels of crude oil in 2023, up from 90.8 million in 2022. According to state production figures, Wyoming has about 2 percent of the country’s proven crude oil reserves, and about 10,600 wells that produce oil. Helms says states around the country have benefitted from research efforts conducted in North Dakota.
“I think of the people that were involved in those early Bakken years, you know, the folks with Brigham Oil and Whiting Oil and Continental Resources that dug into those rocks and just completely changed our understanding of the geology. And along with that came technology. I’m still astounded by what has happened. I remember working in the industry when it took us three months to drill a 13,000-foot vertical. Now they’re drilling wells that are 10,000 feet deep with a 15,000-foot lateral on them in 12 days. And the changes in the drilling rigs; they’re so much safer. They’re so much faster, they’re so much bigger. And along with that have come incredible environmental benefits. So, there’s so much to talk about, but really it all centered around the great people that put their money and their capital down and said we’re going to try some of these things. We’re going to be innovative. We’re going to invent new ways of producing oil and gas. And by golly, they sure did.”
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