North Dakota is now officially producing 1 million barrels per day of oil, according to April data from the state's Department of Mineral Resources.
This 27 May, 2007 photo shows an oil rig in Tioga, North Dakota. The rig is pumping oil from the Bakken formation near the western North Dakota town, believed to have far more oil than the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Leigh Price, a scientist with the US Geological Survey, published a study in 1999 that estimates the Bakken shales formation, which underlies much of several western and northwestern counties, may hold up to 400 billion barrels of oil. By comparison, the Arctic refuge oil reserve is estimated at 16 billion barrels. Price died in 2000 and his study was never peer reviewed, but in 2006 Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-ND, pushed the federal agency to complete scientific work on Price?s paper as part of a national inventory of the nation?s oil resources. AFP PHOTO/Karen BLEIER
