Nov. 1--Oil production is picking up speed in the region and officials say some new greener technology for drilling is being used.

Vicky Steiner, executive director of the North Dakota Association of Oil and Gas Producing Counties and ND Association of Coal Conversion Counties, said things are definitely looking up.

The association, which formed in the early '80s during an oil-boom period due to concerns about oil impacts, involves 17 counties in oil and gas and three in coal, each paying dues annually according to how much production is in their county, Steiner said.

"They pay voluntary dues to belong. They don't have to belong, but they kind of get together so they can have staff and have information, and that's basically what I provide for them," Steiner said. "It's (dues) are based on a percent of what they receive in production. The smallest they pay is $75. It's capped at $3,000."

North Dakota's oil and coal taxes are "in lieu of" of property taxes, and the taxes are shared with the state as well as the local political subdivisions of counties, cities and school districts, according to the association's Web site.

"They are doing offsets to this Lodgepole Formation and our Stark County oil and gas gross production tax should be rising because the Lodgepole Formation that was discovered south of the golf course means there will be more wells drilled," Steiner said. "Things are looking up for Stark County. Eventually, they believe this Three Forks Formation should come all the way down over the next 20 years to Bowman. We've got a very bright future for oil production."

In the west, a lot of years of oil production are in the future, she said.

New technology that aims at being greener is popping up, Steiner said.

"Essentially, companies with multi-rigs and multi-well programs, in certain areas, what they are starting to do is looking at moving toward a system where they lay out at series of well pads in one area and they deploy rigs that can kind of walk along certain areas and drill maybe multiple wells from a single pad," said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council. "Which reduces the environmental footprint, of course. I think there is one company using it now and companies putting it into their plans in the future."

The eco-pad was proposed by Continental Resources Inc., according to association information.

Ness said production in August was at 231,000 barrels a day.

"It's another all-time record for North Dakota," Ness said. "It moves us into fourth place in oil producing states."

Ness said substantial increases in activity are being noted as well as the oil rig count continually moving upward.

A peak was hit in November of 2008, with the state seeing a significant reduction in activity, losing 65 percent of rigs, but now things are looking up.

"We're seeing an influx of permits, wells being permitted," Ness said. "We expect the rig count to jump substantially moving into 2010. We're seeing massive investments into infrastructure, which is a good thing. We expect 2010 to be a big year."

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