Eighteen (18) New Permits -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA

Active rigs: 185 (steady)

Eighteen (18) new permits --

• Operators: G3 Operating (4), BR (4), BEXP (3), Hess (3), XTO (2), Whiting, Legacy Oil
• Fields: Sanish (Mountrail), North Fork (McKenzie), Capa (Williams), Robinson Lake (Mountrail),  Eagle Nest (Dunn), Alger (Mountrail), Red Rock (Bottineau),
• Comments:

Wells coming off the confidential list were posted earlier; see sidebar at the right.

Permitting:

With 521 permits for oil and gas wells so far this calendar year (does not include salt water disposal wells), this puts the state on track for 2,570 permits for calendar year 2013.

At the same point one year ago, 392 permits had been issued, which put the state on track for 1,934 permits for calendar 2012. The state ended up issuing 2,251 permits in 2012, of which 30 or so were eventually canceled.