Million Barrels a Day? Possibly Soon

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota oil drillers are continuing to produce oil at a record pace and are closing in on a million barrels of oil a day.

The Department of Mineral Resources says the state produced an average of 911,242 barrels per day in August. That's up from an average of 875,736 barrels daily in July.

Agency records show oil production in North Dakota has more than doubled since 2011, when the daily production average for August was about 446,000 barrels of oil.

North Dakota's oil patch had a record 9,452 producing wells in August, up from 9,334 in July.

North Dakota also produced a record 31 million cubic feet of natural gas in August, or more than 1 million cubic feet daily.